  This is about the Minimum Description Length (MDL) principle applied to
pattern mining. The length of this description is kept to the minimum.
  Mining patterns is a core task in data analysis and, beyond issues of
efficient enumeration, the selection of patterns constitutes a major challenge.
The MDL principle, a model selection method grounded in information theory, has
been applied to pattern mining with the aim to obtain compact high-quality sets
of patterns. After giving an outline of relevant concepts from information
theory and coding, as well as of work on the theory behind the MDL and similar
principles, we review MDL-based methods for mining various types of data and
patterns. Finally, we open a discussion on some issues regarding these methods,
and highlight currently active related data analysis problems.
