Codes that attain minimum distance in every possible direction
The following problem motivated by investigation of databases is studied. Let be a q-ary code of length n with the properties that has minimum distance at least n − k + 1, and for any set of k − 1 coordinates there exist two codewords that agree exactly there. Let f(q, k)be the maximum n for which such a code exists. f(q, k)is bounded by linear functions of k and q, and the exact values for special k and qare determined.