Ranks of \(q\)-ary 1-perfect codes (Q697638)

The rank of a \(q\)-ary code \(C\) of length \(n\) is the dimension of the subspace spanned by \(C\). The authors prove that starting from the \(q\)-ary Hamming code of length \(n={q^m- 1\over q-1}\) and using the switching construction they can construct \(q\)-ary perfect single-error-correcting codes of length \(n= {q^m-1\over q-1}\) for \(m\geq 4\) with all possible different ranks. This is a generalization of the binary case proved by \textit{T. Etzion} and \textit{A. Vardy} [IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory 40, 754-763 (1994; Zbl 0824.94029)].