What is "erasure code"

n. (context information theory English) A forward-error-correction (FEC) code for the binary erasure channel, which transforms a message of ''k'' symbols into a longer message with ''n'' symbols such that the original message can be recovered from a subset of the ''n'' symbols.

In information theory, an erasure code is a forward error correction (FEC) code for the binary erasure channel, which transforms a message of k symbols into a longer message (code word) with n symbols such that the original message can be recovered from a subset of the n symbols. The fraction r = k/n is called the code rate, the fraction k’/k, where k’ denotes the number of symbols required for recovery, is called reception efficiency.