The invention relates to compression coding and/or decoding of digital signals, in particular by vector variable-rate quantisation defining a variable resolution. For this purpose an impulsion dictionary comprises: for a given dimension, increasing resolution dictionaries imbricated into each other and, for a given dimension, a union of: a totality (D′i ) of code-vectors produced, by inserting elements taken in a final set (A) into smaller dimension code-vectors according to a final set of predetermined insertion rules (F1) and a second totality of code-vectors (Y′) which are not obtainable by insertion into the smaller dimension code vectors according to said set of the insertion rules.