A data compressor for compressing a data signal and a corresponding data decompressor are disclosed. The data compressor comprises: compression circuitry for compressing said data signal using a plurality of variable length compression codes; a digital code select signal generator for generating a digital code select signal from an indicator signal indicative of a preferred compression distribution, a frequency of said digital code select signal being higher than a frequency of said indicator signal and an average value of said digital code select signal corresponding to an average value of said indicator signal; said compression circuitry being responsive to said digital code select signal to select between one of said plurality of compression codes in dependence upon a current value of said digital code select signal and to compress said data signal using said selected compression code.