Coq: Cannot infer an internal placeholder of type "nat" in environment: ev : nat -> Prop - coq

I am trying to execute IndProp.v of Software Foundation classes, but I am immediately greeted with error
Set Warnings "-notation-overridden,-parsing,-deprecated-hint-without-locality".
From LF Require Export Logic.
From Coq Require Import Lia.
...
Inductive ev : nat -> Prop :=s
| ev_0 : ev 0
| ev_SS (n : nat) (H : ev n) : ev (S (S n)).
===============================================
Cannot infer an internal placeholder of type "nat" in environment:
ev : nat -> Prop
I ve had some errors with core types being shadowed by those defined in the book before, but haven't seen this error before?
Previous chapters compile correctly.
denis#dgecko:~/books/Volume1_LogicalFoundations> coqc --version
The Coq Proof Assistant, version 8.14.0
compiled with OCaml 4.13.1

There is a spurious "s" after the := sign.

Related

Why does this Coq Definition fail? Coq Namespace error for Inductive Type

I have the following Inductive Type and a test function:
Inductive parameter : Type :=
| Nop
| OneP : forall A, A -> parameter
| TwoP : forall (A : Type) (r : nat) (b : A), parameter
.
Check (TwoP nat 1 5).
Definition test (p : parameter) : option (nat * nat) :=
match p with
| TwoP nat x y => Some (x, y)
| _ => None
end.
The test function fails with the error:
The term "Some (x, y)" has type "option (Datatypes.nat * nat)"
while it is expected to have type "option (Datatypes.nat * Datatypes.nat)".
I don't understand why my definition does not work. Is there a difference between nat and Datataypes.nat ?
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
In Coq, it is not possible to test what a type is. Consider the following program:
Definition is_nat (A : Type) : bool :=
match A with
| nat => true
| _ => false
end.
If you try to run this, Coq tells you that the last branch is redundant, and rejects the definition. The issue is that nat is taken to be a variable name, not the nat data type from the standard library. Therefore, the first branch matches every type A, and the last branch is redundant. In your example, the pattern nat ends up masking the data type nat, which is why you end up seeing the qualified name Datatypes.nat.
One way of solving this issue is to use a type of codes instead of Type. For instance:
Inductive type : Type :=
| Bool
| Nat.
Definition type_denote t : Type :=
match t with
| Bool => bool
| Nat => nat
end.
Coercion type_denote : type >-> Sortclass.
Inductive parameter : Type :=
| Nop
| OneP : forall (A : type), A -> parameter
| TwoP : forall (A : type) (r : nat) (b : A), parameter
.
Check (TwoP Nat 1 5).
Definition test (p : parameter) : option (nat * nat) :=
match p with
| TwoP Nat x y => Some (x, y)
| _ => None
end.
There are two issues with this solution. First, it requires you to anticipate all types that you will need in parameter, and add those in the definition of type. Second, it forces you to program with dependent types, which can be hard to manipulate. It might be possible to refactor your definitions to avoid the problem of type matching altogether, although there is no one-size-fits-all solution -- it depends on your application.

Coq difficulties in defining constructors using coerced types

Definitions
I'm working on formalizing a typed lambda calculus in Coq, and to keep the notation manageable I've come to rely a lot on coercions. However, I've been running into some difficulties which seem odd.
Right now I'm trying to work with the following types:
type: A descriptor of an allowable type in the language (like function, Unit, etc...)
var: A variable type, defined as nat
VarSets: set of vars
Judgement: a var/my_type pair
ty_ctx: Lists of judgements.
ctx_join: Pairs of ty_ctx's describing disjoint sets of variables
The actual definitions are all given below, except for ctx_join which is given in the next block
(* Imports *)
Require Import lang_spec.
From Coq Require Import MSets.
Require Import List.
Import ListNotations.
Module VarSet := Make(Nat_as_OT).
Inductive Judgement : Type :=
| judge (v : var) (t : type)
.
Definition ty_ctx := (list Judgement).
Definition disj_vars (s1 s2 : VarSet.t) := VarSet.Empty (VarSet.inter s1 s2).
Often I'd like to make statements like "this var does not appear in the set of vars bound by ty_ctx", and to that end I've set up a bunch of coercions between these types below.
(* Functions to convert between the different types listed above *)
Fixpoint var_to_varset (v : var) : VarSet.t :=
VarSet.singleton v.
Coercion var_to_varset : var >-> VarSet.t.
Fixpoint bound_variables (g : ty_ctx) : VarSet.t :=
match g with
| nil => VarSet.empty
| cons (judge v _) g' =>VarSet.union (VarSet.singleton v) (bound_variables g')
end.
Coercion bound_variables : ty_ctx >-> VarSet.t.
Inductive ctx_join :=
| join_single (g : ty_ctx)
| join_double (g1 g2 : ty_ctx)
(disjoint_proof : disj_vars g1 g2)
.
Fixpoint coerce_ctx_join (dj : ctx_join) : ty_ctx :=
match dj with
| join_single g => g
| join_double g1 g2 _ => g1 ++ g2
end.
Coercion coerce_ctx_join : ctx_join >-> ty_ctx.
Fixpoint coerce_judgement_to_ty_ctx (j : Judgement) : ty_ctx :=
cons j nil.
Coercion coerce_judgement_to_ty_ctx : Judgement >-> ty_ctx.
You'll notice that the definition of ctx_join relies on coercing its arguments from ty_ctx to VarSet.
I've drawn up the conversion hierarchy just to make things clear
The Problem
I'd like to define an inductive type with the following constructor
Inductive expr_has_type : ty_ctx -> nat -> type -> Prop :=
(* General Expressions *)
| ty_var (g : ty_ctx) (x : var) (t : type) (xfree : disj_vars x g)
: expr_has_type (join_double (judge x t) g xfree) x t
.
The problem is that when I do, I get the following error:
Error:
In environment
expr_has_type : ty_ctx -> nat -> type -> Prop
g : ty_ctx
x : var
t : type
xfree : disj_vars x g
The term "xfree" has type "disj_vars x g" while it is expected to have type
"disj_vars (judge x t) g" (cannot unify "VarSet.In a (VarSet.inter (judge x t) g)" and
"VarSet.In a (VarSet.inter x g)").
However, if I change the type of xfree to disj_vars (VarSet.singleton x) g, then the definition works fine! This seems very odd, as disj_vars is defined only on VarSets, and so it seems like x should automatically be converted toVarSet.singleton x since that's how the coercion is set up.
Even weirder is the fact that if I don't set up the coercion from vars to varsets, then Coq correctly complains about applying dis_vars to a var instead of a VarSet. So the coercion is definitely doing something
Can someone explain to me why the first definition fails? Given the coercions I've set up, to me it like all the definitions above should be equivalent
Note
Changing the type of xfree to disj_vars (judge x t) g also fixes the error. This seems odd too, since to be able to apply disj_vars to j := (judge x t), it first needs to be coerced to a ty_ctx via cons j nil, then to a VarSet via bound_variables, which should produce a VarSet containing only x (which is equivalent to VarSet.singleton x?). So this coercion chain seems to go off without a hitch, while the other one fails even though it's simpler
If you use Set Printing Coercions., the error message will be much more informative about the problem:
The term "xfree" has type "disj_vars (var_to_varset x) (bound_variables g)"
while it is expected to have type
"disj_vars (bound_variables (coerce_judgement_to_ty_ctx (judge x t)))
(bound_variables g)"
The problem is that the coercion of x into a VarSet.t is equal to Var.singleton x, while the coercion in judge reduces to VarSet.union (VarSet.singleton x) VarSet.empty. While these two are propositionally equal, they are not judgmentally equal, so as far as Coq is concerned, the term it came up with is ill-typed.

A simple case of universe inconsistency

I can define the following inductive type:
Inductive T : Type -> Type :=
| c1 : forall (A : Type), A -> T A
| c2 : T unit.
But then the command Check (c1 (T nat)) fails with the message: The term T nat has type Type#{max(Set, Top.3+1)} while it is expected to have type Type#{Top.3} (universe inconsistency).
How can I tweak the above inductive definition so that c1 (T nat) does not cause a universe inconsistency, and without setting universe polymorphism on?
The following works, but I would prefer a solution without adding equality:
Inductive T (A : Type) : Type :=
| c1 : A -> T A
| c2' : A = unit -> T A.
Definition c2 : T unit := c2' unit eq_refl.
Check (c1 (T nat)).
(*
c1 (T nat)
: T nat -> T (T nat)
*)
Let me first answer the question of why we get the universe inconsistency in the first place.
Universe inconsistencies are the errors that Coq reports to avoid proofs of False via Russell's paradox, which results from considering the set of all sets which do not contain themselves.
There's a variant which is more convenient to formalize in type theory called Hurken's Paradox; see Coq.Logic.Hurkens for more details. There is a specialization of Hurken's paradox which proves that no type can retract to a smaller type. That is, given
U := Type#{u}
A : U
down : U -> A
up : A -> U
up_down : forall (X:U), up (down X) = X
we can prove False.
This is almost exactly the setup of your Inductive type. Annotating your type with universes, you start with
Inductive T : Type#{i} -> Type#{j} :=
| c1 : forall (A : Type#{i}), A -> T A
| c2 : T unit.
Note that we can invert this inductive; we may write
Definition c1' (A : Type#{i}) (v : T A) : A
:= match v with
| c1 A x => x
| c2 => tt
end.
Lemma c1'_c1 (A : Type#{i}) : forall v, c1' A (c1 A v) = v.
Proof. reflexivity. Qed.
Suppose, for a moment, that c1 (T nat) typechecked. Since T nat : Type#{j}, this would require j <= i. If it gave us that j < i, then we would be set. We could write c1 Type#{j}. And this is exactly the setup for the variant of Hurken's that I mentioned above! We could define
u = j
U := Type#{j}
A := T Type#{j}
down : U -> A := c1 Type#{j}
up : A -> U := c1' Type#{j}
up_down := c1'_c1 Type#{j}
and hence prove False.
Coq needs to implement a rule for avoiding this paradox. As described here, the rule is that for each (non-parameter) argument to a constructor of an inductive, if the type of the argument has a sort in universe u, then the universe of the inductive is constrained to be >= u. In this case, this is stricter than Coq needs to be. As mentioned by SkySkimmer here, Coq could recognize arguments which appear directly in locations which are indices of the inductive, and disregard those in the same way that it disregards parameters.
So, to finally answer your question, I believe the following are your only options:
You can Set Universe Polymorphism so that in T (T nat), your two Ts take different universe arguments. (Equivalently, you can write Polymorphic Inductive.)
You can take advantage of how Coq treats parameters of inductive types specially, which mandates using equality in your case. (The requirement of using equality is a general property of going from indexed inductive types to parameterized inductives types---from moving arguments from after the : to before it.)
You can pass Coq the flag -type-in-type to entirely disable universe checking.
You can fix bug #7929, which I reported as part of digging into this question, to make Coq handle arguments of constructors which appear in index-position in the inductive in the same way it handles parameters of inductive types.
(You can find another edge case of the system, and manage to trick Coq into ignoring the universes you want to slip past it, and probably find a proof of False in the process. (Possibly involving module subtyping, see, e.g., this recent bug in modules with universes.))

Coinduction on Coq, type mismatch

I've been trying out coinductive types and decided to define coinductive versions of the natural numbers and the vectors (lists with their size in the type). I defined them and the infinite number as so:
CoInductive conat : Set :=
| cozero : conat
| cosuc : conat -> conat.
CoInductive covec (A : Set) : conat -> Set :=
| conil : covec A cozero
| cocons : forall (n : conat), A -> covec A n -> covec A (cosuc n).
CoFixpoint infnum : conat := cosuc infnum.
It all worked except for the definition I gave for an infinite covector
CoFixpoint ones : covec nat infnum := cocons 1 ones.
which gave the following type mismatch
Error:
In environment
ones : covec nat infnum
The term "cocons 1 ones" has type "covec nat (cosuc infnum)" while it is expected to have type
"covec nat infnum".
I thought the compiler would accept this definition since, by definition, infnum = cosuc infnum. How can I make the compiler understand these expressions are the same?
The standard way to solve this issue is described in Adam Chlipala's CPDT (see the chapter on Coinduction).
Definition frob (c : conat) :=
match c with
| cozero => cozero
| cosuc c' => cosuc c'
end.
Lemma frob_eq (c : conat) : c = frob c.
Proof. now destruct c. Qed.
You can use the above definitions like so:
CoFixpoint ones : covec nat infnum.
Proof. rewrite frob_eq; exact (cocons 1 ones). Defined.
or, perhaps, in a bit more readable way:
Require Import Coq.Program.Tactics.
Program CoFixpoint ones : covec nat infnum := cocons 1 ones.
Next Obligation. now rewrite frob_eq. Qed.

Coq type error when matching with type family

I’m trying to re-implement an example from CPDT from memory. I wrote:
Inductive myType : Set := MyNat | MyBool.
Definition typeDenote (t : myType) : Set :=
match t with
| MyNat => nat
| MyBool => bool
end.
Inductive unaryOp : myType -> myType -> Set :=
| Twice : unaryOp MyNat MyNat.
Definition twice (n:nat) : nat := n + n.
Definition tunaryDenote (a b : myType) (t : unaryOp a b)
: typeDenote a -> typeDenote b :=
match t with
| Twice => twice
end.
The resulting error is:
Toplevel input, characters 125-130
> | Twice => twice
> ^^^^^
Error: In environment
a : myType
b : myType
t : unaryOp a b
The term "twice" has type "nat -> nat" while it is expected to have type
"forall H : typeDenote ?141, typeDenote ?142"
I don’t understand this error message. I would think that once the match on Twice : unaryOp MyNat MyNat succeeds, Coq infers that a and b are MyNats, and thus typeDenote a -> typeDenote b ≡ nat -> nat, making twice a perfectly fine candidate for the return value. Where’d I go wrong?
Just like #AntonTrunov said, it is typechecked without any issue on my Coq 8.5pl1. However if you need to add some extra annotations for your version to accept the function, you want to have a look at this section of the manual to figure out what to do.
My guess is that you want to have a match ... in ... return ... with to say that the return type should be refined by the information obtained by matching t at the type unaryOp a b (indeed: a and b will take concrete values in the Twice branch).
This is the definition you get using that technique:
Definition tunaryDenote (a b : myType) (t : unaryOp a b)
: typeDenote a -> typeDenote b :=
match t in unaryOp a b return typeDenote a -> typeDenote b with
| Twice => twice
end.
I think that the answer is that Coq's type inference is limited, and does not do the reasoning you want it to do.
Coq's type inference does not do arbitrary calculation but simple unification. It looks at twice, understand that it is nat->nat and concludes that it is not (syntactically) of the form typeDenote a -> TypeDenote b.
If it was doing calculation, it was likely to be non-terminating, since its type system is very sophisticated so you can encode non-trivial computation there.
I tried a newer version of Coq, and like others have said, it typechecks without issue on Coq 8.5. :)