Comma-free error-correcting codes
J. J. Stiffler · IEEE Transactions on Information Theory · 1965
A method is shown by which it is possible to establish the existence (or nonexistence) of the comma-free properties of any group code from a simple observation of its null-space. Using this technique it is then demonstrated that all(n, k){em cyclic} group error-correcting code dictionaries can be made comma-free (without adding further redundancy or altering their error-correcting properties) if, and only if,k \leq (n - 1)/2. Ifkis larger than(n - 1)/2it is still possible to detect bit gains or losses of up ton-k-1code bits.