In this paper we classify all extremal and s-extremal binary self-dual codes of length 38. There are exactly 2744 extremal [38,19,8] self-dual codes, two s-extremal [38,19,6] codes, and 1730 s
Nearby in the stack
-extremal
[38,19,8]
codes. We obtain our results from the use of a recursive algorithm used in the recent classification of all extremal self-dual codes of length 36, and from a generalization of this recursive algorithm for the shadow. The classification of
s
-extremal
[38,19,6]
codes permits to achieve the classification of all