IJAM, Volume 27, No. 1 (2014)

Abstract. A Goppa code is described in terms of a polynomial, known as Goppa polynomial, and in contrast to cyclic codes, where it is difficult to estimate the minimum Hamming distance d from the generator polynomial. Furthermore, a Goppa code has the property that d ≥ deg(h(X))+1, where h(X) is a Goppa polynomial. In this paper, we present a decoding principle for Goppa codes constructed by generalized polynomials, which is based on modified Berlekamp-Massey algorithm.