The present application provides a method and device for encoding and decoding a set of point vector index representation strings and a unit base vector string without using a flag bit, but automatically alternating the encoding. When encoding and decoding each set of point vector index representation strings, a variable called string number and its
syntax element, which indicates how many point vector index representation strings in the set, is first encoded and decoded; then the point vector index representation strings in the set are encoded and decoded one by one, and the encoding and decoding of a unit base vector string is automatically started, and the encoding and decoding of the point vector index representation strings and the unit base vector string are alternated continuously until all the strings in the current compression unit are encoded and decoded. In this way, each unit base vector string can save a flag bit, and the point prediction encoding efficiency is effectively improved.