Fast generalized minimum-distance decoding of algebraic-geometry and Reed-Solomon codes

Generalized minimum-distance (GMD) decoding is a standard soft-decoding method for block codes. We derive an efficient general GMD decoding scheme for linear block codes in the framework of error-correcting pairs. Special attention is paid to Reed-Solomon (RS) codes and one-point algebraic-geometry (AG) codes. For RS codes of length n and minimum Hamming distance d the GMD decoding complexity turns out to be in the order O(nd), where the complexity is counted as the number of multiplications in the field of concern. For AG codes the GMD decoding complexity is highly dependent on the curve in consideration. It is shown that we can find all relevant error-erasure-locating functions with complexity O(o/sub 1/nd), where o/sub 1/ is the size of the first nongap in the function space associated with the code. A full GMD decoding procedure for a one-point AG code can be performed with complexity O(dn/sup 2/).