1. A method comprising: generating partial values of base codewords for levels of a coding tree specifying variable length codewords; generating a skip indicator instructing a decoder to skip a number of bits in a bitstream to be decoded before proceeding to a selected level of the coding tree; and storing the partial values and the skip indicator in a data structure in a memory, wherein some of the levels of the coding tree include codewords arranged in a lexicographic order with respect to values represented by the codewords, and each of the base codewords is a lexicographically smallest codeword at a corresponding level in the coding tree.