Variable byte codes

Variable byte (VB) encoding uses an integral number of bytes to encode a gap. The last 7 bits of a byte are ``payload'' and encode part of the gap. The first bit of the byte is a continuation bit . It is set to 1 for the last byte of the encoded gap and to 0 otherwise. To decode a variable byte code, we read a sequence of bytes with continuation bit 0 terminated by a byte with continuation bit 1.