Decoding method and device

Disclosed are a decoding method and a device. The method comprises steps of: determining an initial state from all the states at all the moments of a tail-biting convolutional code, wherein the number of all the moments is determined by the sequence length K of an original information sequence of the tail-biting convolutional code, the number of all the states is determined by the number of shift registers of an encoder, and the tail-biting convolutional code is acquired by the encoding of the original information sequence by the encoder; conducting LVA decoding on the tail-biting convolutional code according to the initial state to acquire Lc code words, wherein the initial state corresponds to the Lth bit of the original information sequence; circularly shifting the Lc code words to the right by L bits or circularly shifting same to the left by K-L bits respectively; and acquiring a decoding result according to the circularly shifted code words. By means of such a decoding method and a device, the initial state can be more accurately found, and the decoding complexity can be reduced, so that the decoding performance can be improved.