Mechanisms are provided for decoding a variable length encoded data stream. A decoder of a data processing system receives an input line of data. The input line of data is a portion of the variable length encoded data stream. The decoder determines an amount of bit spill over of the input line of data onto a next input line of data. The decoder aligns the input line of data to begin at a symbol boundary based on the determined amount of bit spill over. The decoder tokenizes the aligned input line of data to generate a set of tokens. Each token corresponds to an encoded symbol in the aligned next input line of data. The decoder generates an output word of data based on the set of tokens. The output word of data corresponds to a word of data in the original set of data.