On the extendibility of near-MDS elliptic codes (Q1885351)

Near-MDS codes were studied by several authors; see e.g. [\textit{M. A. de Boer}, Codes: their parameters and geometry (Eindhoven: TU Eindhoven) (1997; Zbl 0866.94024); Almost MDS codes, Des. Codes Cryptography 9, 143--155 (1996; Zbl 0913.94025)]. There exist near-MDS (\(q\)-ary) codes of length \(N_q(1)\), the maximum number of \(\mathbb F_q\)-rational points that a curve of genus 1 can have. In general, it seems difficult to construct such codes with bigger length. By using certain \(k\)-elliptic near-MDS codes as a building-block, the author investigates the possibility of extending such codes in order to obtain near-MDS codes of length bigger than \(N_q(1)\). The method of the proof of the main theorem is based in a combinatorial relation between \(k\)-elliptic codes and \((n,k,k-2)\)-sets on the projective space \(\mathbb P^{k-1}(\mathbb F_q)\).