Linear complexity for sequences with characteristic polynomial ƒv

We present several generalisations of the Games-Chan algorithm. For a fixed monic irreducible polynomial ƒ we consider the sequences s that have as characteristic polynomial a power of ƒ. We propose an algorithm for computing the linear complexity of s given a full (not necessarily minimal) period of s. We give versions of the algorithm for fields of characteristic 2 and for arbitrary finite characteristic p, the latter generalising an algorithm of Kaida et al. We also propose an algorithm which computes the linear complexity given only a finite portion of s (of length greater than or equal to the linear complexity), generalising an algorithm of Meidl. All our algorithms have linear computational complexity. The algorithms for computing the linear complexity when a full period is known can be further generalised to sequences for which it is known a priori that the irreducible factors of the minimal polynomial belong to a given small set of polynomials.