An explicit expression for the cost of a class of Huffman trees

Let T_n denote a binary tree with n terminal nodes V={υ₁,…,υ_n} and let l_i denote the path length from the root to υ_i. Consider a set of nonnegative numbers W={w₁,…,w_n} and for a permutation π of {1,…,n} to {1,…,n}, associate the weight w_i to the node υ_π(i). The cost of T_n is defined as C(T_n∣W)=Min_π∑ⁿ_i=1w_il_π(i).A Huffman tree H_n is a binary tree which minimizes C(T_n∣W) over all possible T_n. In this note, we give an explicit expression for C(H_n∣W) when W assumes the form: w_i=k for i=1,…,n?m; w_i=x for i=n?m+1,…,n. This simplifies and generalizes earlier results in the literature.