This Library provides several coq tactics and tacticals to deal with hypothesis during a proof.

Main page and documentation: https://github.com/Matafou/LibHyps

Demo file demo.v acts as a documentation.

Short description:

LibHyps provides utilities for hypothesis manipulations. In particular a new tactic especialize H and a set of tacticals to appy or iterate tactics either on all hypothesis of a goal or on "new' hypothesis after a tactic. It also provide syntax for a few predefined such iterators.

QUICK REF: especialize

This tactic was broken in coq v8.18. It is now fixed with some modification: see the remark about evars below

• especialize H at 3 [as h]. Creates a subgoal to prove the nth (here the 3rd) dependent premise of H, creating necessary evars for non unifiable variables (see below for how to declare this variables). Once proved the subgoal is used to remove the nth premise of H (or of a new created hypothesis if the as option is given). Se at the bottom of this page for a discussion about the logical completeness of this tactic.

• especialize H at * [as h]. Creates one subgoal for each dependent premise of H, creating necessary evars for non unifiable variables. Once proved the subgoal is used to remove the premises of H (or of a new created hypothesis if the as option is given).

• especialize H until n [as h]. Creates one subgoal for each n first dependent premises of H, creating necessary evars for non unifiable variables. Once proved the subgoal is used to remove the premises of H (or of a new created hypothesis if the as option is given).

• all this variant accept (and may need) a supplementary argument with x,y,z to declare the variables of the hypothesis which must be transformed into existential variables. Examples:

  especialize H with x,z at n [as h]., especialize H with a,b at * [as h]., etc.

  These declarations are mandatory (from version 3 of libHyps) due to restriction in coq >= 8.18. If you forget to mention such a variable you will get an error message like this:

  Unable to unify "?n0" with "u" (cannot instantiate "?n0"` <!-- -->
  `because "u" is not in its scope: available arguments are "y" "a" "b" "t").

  I am considering the possibility to have a mode where some of these variables may be declared implicitly.

QUICK REF: Pre-defined tacticals /s /n...

The most useful user-dedicated tacticals are the following

• tac /s try to apply subst on each new hyp.
• tac /r revert each new hyp.
• tac /n auto-rename each new hyp.
• tac /g group all non-Prop new hyp at the top of the goal.
• combine the above, as in tac /s/n/g.
• usual combinations have shortcuts: \sng, \sn,\ng,\sg...

Install

Quick install using opam

If you have not done it already add the coq platform repository to opam!

opam repo add coq-released https://coq.inria.fr/opam/released

and then:

opam install coq-libhyps

Quick install using github:

Clone the github repository:

git clone https://github.com/Matafou/LibHyps

then compile:

configure.sh
make
make install

Quick test:

Require Import LibHyps.LibHyps.

Demo files demo.v.

More information

Deprecation from 1.0.x to 2.0.x

• "!tac", "!!tac" etc are now only loaded if you do: Import LibHyps.LegacyNotations., the composable tacticals described above are preferred.
• "tac1 ;; tac2" remains, but you can also use "tac1; { tac2 }".
• "tac1 ;!; tac2" remains, but you can also use "tac1; {< tac2 }".

KNOWN BUGS

Due to Ltac limitation, it is difficult to define a tactic notation tac1 ; { tac2 } which delays tac1 and tac2 in all cases. Sometimes (rarely) you will have to write (idtac; tac1); {idtac; tac2}. You may then use tactic notation like: Tactic Notation tac1' := idtac; tac1..

Examples

Require Import LibHyps.LibHyps.

Lemma foo: forall x y z:nat,
    x = y -> forall  a b t : nat, a+1 = t+2 -> b + 5 = t - 7 ->  (forall u v, v+1 = 1 -> u+1 = 1 -> a+1 = z+2)  -> z = b + x-> True.
Proof.
  intros.
  (* ugly names *)
  Undo.
  (* Example of using the iterator on new hyps: this prints each new hyp name. *)
  intros; {fun h => idtac h}.
  Undo.
  (* This gives sensible names to each new hyp. *)
  intros ; { autorename }.
  Undo.
  (* short syntax: *)
  intros /n.
  Undo.
  (* same thing but use subst if possible, and group non prop hyps to the top. *)
  intros ; { substHyp }; { autorename}; {move_up_types}.
  Undo.
  (* short syntax: *)  
  intros /s/n/g.
  Undo.
  (* Even shorter: *)  
  intros /s/n/g.

  (* Let us instantiate the 2nd premis of h_all_eq_add_add without copying its type: *)
  especialize h_all_eq_add_add_ with u at 2.
  { apply Nat.add_0_l. }
  (* now h_all_eq_add_add is specialized *)
  Undo 6.
  intros until 1.
  (** The taticals apply after any tactic. Notice how H:x=y is not new
    and hence not substituted, whereas z = b + x is. *)
  destruct x eqn:heq;intros /sng.
  - apply I.
  - apply I.
Qed.

Short Documentation

The following explains how it works under the hood, for people willing to apply more generic iterators to their own tactics. See also the code.

Iterator on all hypothesis

• onAllHyps tac does tac H for each hypothesis H of the current goal.
• onAllHypsRev tac same as onAllHyps tac but in reverse order (good for reverting for instance).

Iterators on ALL NEW hypothesis (since LibHyps-1.2.0)

• tac1 ;{! tac2 } applies tac1 to current goal and then tac2 to the list of all new hypothesis in each subgoal (iteration: oldest first). The list is a term of type LibHyps.TacNewHyps.DList. See the code.
• tac1 ;{!< tac2 } is similar but the list of new hyps is reveresed.

Iterators on EACH NEW hypothesis

• tac1 ;{ tac2 } applies tac1 to current goal and then tac2 to each new hypothesis in each subgoal (iteration: older first).

• tac1 ;{< tac2 } is similar but applies tac2 on newer hyps first.

• tac1 ;; tac2 is a synonym of tac1; { tac2 }.

• tac1 ;!; tac2 is a synonym of tac1; {< tac2 }.

Customizable hypothesis auto naming system

Using previous taticals (in particular the ;!; tactical), some tactic allow to rename hypothesis automatically.

• autorename H rename H according to the current naming scheme (which is customizable, see below).

• rename_all_hyps applies autorename to all hypothesis.

• !tac applies tactic tac and then applies autorename to each new hypothesis. Shortcut for: (Tac ;!; revert_if_norename ;; autorename)..`

• !!tac same as !tac with lesser priority (less than ;) to apply renaming after a group of chained tactics.

How to cstomize the naming scheme

The naming engine analyzes the type of hypothesis and generates a name mimicking the first levels of term structure. At each level the customizable tactic rename_hyp is called. One can redefine it at will. It must be of the following form:

(** Redefining rename_hyp*)
(* First define a naming ltac. It takes the current level n and
   the sub-term th being looked at. It returns a "name". *)
Ltac rename_hyp_default n th :=
   match th with
   | (ind1 _ _) => name (`ind1`)
   | (ind1 _ _ ?x ?y) => name (`ind1` ++ x#(S n)x ++ y$n)
   | f1 _ ?x = ?y => name (`f1` ++ x#n ++ y#n)
   | _ => previously_defined_renaming_tac1 n th (* cumulative with previously defined renaming tactics *)
   | _ => previously_defined_renaming_tac2 n th
   end.

(* Then overwrite the definition of rename_hyp using the ::= operator. :*)
Ltac rename_hyp ::= my_rename_hyp.

Where:

• `id` to use the name id itself
• t$n to recursively call the naming engine on term t, n being the maximum depth allowed
• name ++ name to concatenate name parts.

How to define variants of these tacticals?

Some more example of tacticals performing cleaning and renaming on new hypothesis.

(* subst or revert *)
Tactic Notation (at level 4) "??" tactic4(tac1) :=
  (tac1 ;; substHyp ;!; revertHyp).
(* subst or rename or revert *)
Tactic Notation "!!!" tactic3(Tac) := (Tac ;; substHyp ;!; revert_if_norename ;; autorename).
(* subst or rename or revert + move up if in (Set or Type). *)
Tactic Notation (at level 4) "!!!!" tactic4(Tac) :=
      (Tac ;; substHyp ;!; revert_if_norename ;; autorename ;; move_up_types).

About the logical "completeness" of especialize

Suppose we have this goal:

  Lemma foo: (forall x:nat, x = 1 -> (x>0) -> x < 0) -> False.
  Proof.
    intros h.

h : forall x : nat, x = 1 -> x > 0 -> x < 0
  ============================
  False

especialize h with x at 2.


  h : ?x = 1 -> ?x > 0 -> ?x < 0
  ============================
  ?x > 0

goal 2 (ID 88) is:
 False

Note that in this case it would be preferable (and logically more accurate) to have a hypothesis h2: ?x = 1 in the context, since the premise 2 of H needs only to be proved when premise 1 is true. Note however that in this kind of situation most users would wait to be able to prove premise 1 before instantiating premise 2. especialize does not cover this kind of subtleties. Another tactic is under development to support this kind of reasoning.