Another expression of the MacWilliams identities and its applications (Q6112191)

The \(b-\)symbol read vector of \(x=(x_0,\ldots,x_{n-1})\in\mathbb{F}_{q}^n\) is defined as \(\pi_b(x) = ((x_0,\ldots, x_{b-1}), (x_1,\ldots, x_b),\ldots, (x_{n-1}, x_0,\ldots, x_{b-2})).\) The \(b-\)symbol code generated by a code \(\mathcal{C}\) is \(\pi_b(\mathcal{C})=\{\pi_b(c) \mid c\in \mathcal{C}\}.\) The \(b-\)symbol weight of a vector \(w_b(x)\) is defined as the number of coordinates \(0\leq i\leq n\) for which \((x_i, \ldots, x_{i+b-1})\neq (0,\ldots, 0)\) and the \(b\)-symbol distance as \(d_b(x, y) = d(\pi_b(x), \pi_b(y))=|\{i:(x_i, \ldots, x_{i+b-1})\neq (y_i, \ldots, y_{i+b-1})\}|\) where \(i, i + 1, \ldots, i + b-1\) are reduced modulo \(n.\) The authors derive a new formula \(N(n-w)=\sum\limits_{j=0}^{w-d}(-1)^j\binom{w}{j}(q^{w-d+1-j}-1)\) for the weight distribution of an MDS linear code that is another expression of the MacWilliams identities. Furthermore, this work gives the 3-symbol weight distributions of MDS linear codes in the cases \(b = 2\) and \(b = 3.\) Examples for the 2-symbol weight distributions of \([4, 3, 2]\) and \([5, 4, 2]\) MDS codes as well as for the 3-symbol distribution \([5, 4, 2]\) MDS codes are given.