A method of generating codewords that conform to a run length limited (RLL) constraint represented by (d, k, a, b), where d is a minimum run length of a codeword, k is a maximum run length of the codeword, a is a length of source data, and b is a length of the codeword. The method includes generating codewords conforming to the RLL(d, k) constraint, and removing codewords in which a relatively long T and a relatively short T are placed adjacent to each other from the generated codewords.