A general coding method for error-correcting output codes

ECOC approach can be used to reduce a multiclass categorization problem to multiple binary problems and to improve the generalization of classifiers. Yet there is no single coding method that can generate ECOCs suitable for any number of classes. This paper provides a search-coding method that associates nonnegative integers with binary strings. Given any number of classes and an expected minimum hamming distance, the method can find out a satisfied output code through searching an integer range. Experimental results show that, as a general coding method, the search-coding method can improve the generalization for both stable and unstable classifiers efficiently.