A survey on maximum distance holey packings (Q1613407)

A \(q\)-ary code with length \(n\) and constant Hamming weight \(k\) can be viewed as a design with block size \(k\) on \(n\) groups (or holes) of \(q-1\) points (corresponding to the nonzero coordinate values)---that is, of type \((q-1)^n\). For \(q\geq 3\), a maximum distance holey packing, MDHP\((2,k,n,q-1)\), is such a design that corresponds to an optimal code with minimum distance \(d = 2k-3\). By optimal, the author means a code that attains a Schönheim-type (or Johnson-type) bound. The paper surveys constructions of maximum distance holey packings and known existence results.