The S -unit equation over function fields

In the study of integral solutions to Diophantine equations, many problems can be reduced to that of solving the equationin S-units of the given ring. To accomplish this over number fields, the only known effective method is to use Baker's deep results on linear forms in logarithms, which yield relatively weak upper bounds. For function fields, R. C. Mason [2] has recently given a remarkably strong effective upper bound. In this note we give an independent proof of Mason's bound, relying only on elementary algebraic geometry, principally the Riemann-Hurwitz formula.