On the computation of the performance probabilities for block codes with a bounded-distance decoding rule

When a block code is used on a discrete memoryless channel with an incomplete decoding rule that is based on a generalized distance, the probability of decoding failure, the probability of erroneous decoding, and the expected number of symbol decoding errors can be expressed in terms of the generalized weight enumerator polynomials of the code. For the symmetric erasure channel, numerically stable methods to compute these probabilities or expectations are proposed for binary codes whose distance distributions are known, and for linear maximum distance separable (MDS) codes. The method for linear MDS codes saves the computation of the weight distribution and yields upper bounds for the probability of erroneous decoding and for the symbol error rate by the cumulative binomial distribution. Numerical examples include a triple-error-correcting Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem (BCH) code of length 63 and a Reed-Solomon code of length 1023 and minimum distance 31