Instantiating an existential with a specific proof - coq

I'm currently trying to write a tactic that instantiates an existential quantifier using a term that can be generated easily (in this specific example, from tauto). My first attempt:
Ltac mytac :=
match goal with
| |- (exists (_ : ?X), _) => cut X;
[ let t := fresh "t" in intro t ; exists t; firstorder
| tauto ]
end.
This tactic will work on a simple problem like
Lemma obv1(X : Set) : exists f : X -> X, f = f.
mytac.
Qed.
However it won't work on a goal like
Lemma obv2(X : Set) : exists f : X -> X, forall x, f x = x.
mytac. (* goal becomes t x = x for arbitrary t,x *)
Here I would like to use this tactic, trusting that the f which tauto finds will be just fun x => x, thus subbing in the specific proof (which should be the identity function) and not just the generic t from my current script. How might I go about writing such a tactic?

It's much more common to create an existential variable and let some tactic (eauto or tauto for example) instantiate the variable by unification.
On the other hand, you can also literally use a tactic to provide the witness using tactics in terms:
Ltac mytac :=
match goal with
| [ |- exists (_:?T), _ ] =>
exists (ltac:(tauto) : T)
end.
Lemma obv1(X : Set) : exists f : X -> X, f = f.
Proof.
mytac.
auto.
Qed.
You need the type ascription : T so that the tactic-in-term ltac:(tauto) has the right goal (the type the exists expects).
I'm not sure this is all that useful (usually the type of the witness isn't very informative and you want to use the rest of the goal to choose it), but it's cool that you can do this nonetheless.

You can use eexists to introduce an existential variable, and let tauto instantiates it.
This give the following simple code.
Lemma obv2(X : Set) : exists f : X -> X, forall x, f x = x.
eexists; tauto.
Qed.

Related

What is the idiomatic way to get `auto` to perform case analysis?

Inductive Foo : nat -> Type :=
| a : Foo 1.
(* ... *)
Goal forall m, Foo m -> m = 1.
Proof.
auto.
Fail Qed.
Is there a straightforward approach to do this?
You can use Hint Extern together with a tactic script that executes the case analysis. For example, this one will use destruct if the argument is a variable, and use inversion_clear otherwise:
Inductive Foo : nat -> Type :=
| a : Foo 1.
Hint Extern 1 => match goal with
| [ H : Foo ?m |- _ ]
=> first [ is_var m; destruct H | inversion_clear H ]
end.
Goal forall m, Foo m -> m = 1.
Proof.
auto.
Qed.
Via Programming Language Foundations, chapter Theory and Practice of Automation in Coq Proofs:
Note that proof search tactics never perform any rewriting step (tactics rewrite, subst), nor any case analysis on an arbitrary data structure or property (tactics destruct and inversion), nor any proof by induction (tactic induction). So, proof search is really intended to automate the final steps from the various branches of a proof. It is not able to discover the overall structure of a proof.
So there is really no way to do this; this goal should be solved manually, and then added to the hint database (Hint blah.).

Proving equality between instances of dependent types

When attempting to formalize the class which corresponds to an algebraic structure (for example the class of all monoids), a natural design is to create a type monoid (a:Type) as a product type which models all the required fields (an element e:a, an operator app : a -> a -> a, proofs that the monoid laws are satisfied etc.). In doing so, we are creating a map monoid: Type -> Type. A possible drawback of this approach is that given a monoid m:monoid a (a monoid with support type a) and m':monoid b (a monoid wih support type b), we cannot even write the equality m = m' (let alone prove it) because it is ill-typed. An alternative design would be to create a type monoid where the support type is just another field a:Type, so that given m m':monoid, it is always meaningful to ask whether m = m'. Somehow, one would like to argue that if m and m' have the same supports (a m = a m) and the operators are equals (app m = app m', which may be achieved thanks to some extensional equality axiom), and that the proof fields do not matter (because we have some proof irrelevance axiom) etc. , then m = m'. Unfortunately, we can't event express the equality app m = app m' because it is ill-typed...
To simplify the problem, suppose we have:
Inductive myType : Type :=
| make : forall (a:Type), a -> myType.
.
I would like to have results of the form:
forall (a b:Type) (x:a) (y:b), a = b -> x = y -> make a x = make b y.
This statement is ill-typed so we can't have it.
I may have axioms allowing me to prove that two types a and b are same, and I may be able to show that x and y are indeed the same too, but I want to have a tool allowing me to conclude that make a x = make b y. Any suggestion is welcome.
A low-tech way to prove this is to insert a manual type-cast, using the provided equality. That is, instead of having an assumption x = y, you have an assumption (CAST q x) = y. Below I explicitly write the cast as a match, but you could also make it look nicer by defining a function to do it.
Inductive myType : Type :=
| make : forall (a:Type), a -> myType.
Lemma ex : forall (a b:Type) (x:a) (y:b) (q: a = b), (match q in _ = T return T with eq_refl => x end) = y -> make a x = make b y.
Proof.
destruct q.
intros q.
congruence.
Qed.
There is a nicer way to hide most of this machinery by using "heterogenous equality", also known as JMeq. I recommend the Equality chapter of CPDT for a detailed introduction. Your example becomes
Require Import Coq.Logic.JMeq.
Infix "==" := JMeq (at level 70, no associativity).
Inductive myType : Type :=
| make : forall (a:Type), a -> myType.
Lemma ex : forall (a b:Type) (x:a) (y:b), a = b -> x == y -> make a x = make b y.
Proof.
intros.
rewrite H0.
reflexivity.
Qed.
In general, although this particular theorem can be proved without axioms, if you do the formalization in this style you are likely to encounter goals that can not be proven in Coq without axioms about equality. In particular, injectivity for this kind of dependent records is not provable. The JMEq library will automatically use an axiom JMeq_eq about heterogeneous equality, which makes it quite convenient.

Canonical structures in ssreflect

I'm trying to deal with canonical structures in ssreflect. There are 2 pieces of code that I took from here.
I will bring pieces for the bool and the option types.
Section BoolFinType.
Lemma bool_enumP : Finite.axiom [:: true; false]. Proof. by case. Qed.
Definition bool_finMixin := Eval hnf in FinMixin bool_enumP.
Canonical bool_finType := Eval hnf in FinType bool bool_finMixin.
Lemma card_bool : #|{: bool}| = 2. Proof. by rewrite cardT enumT unlock. Qed.
End BoolFinType.
Section OptionFinType.
Variable T : finType.
Notation some := (#Some _) (only parsing).
Local Notation enumF T := (Finite.enum T).
Definition option_enum := None :: map some (enumF T).
Lemma option_enumP : Finite.axiom option_enum.
Proof. by case => [x|]; rewrite /= count_map (count_pred0, enumP). Qed.
Definition option_finMixin := Eval hnf in FinMixin option_enumP.
Canonical option_finType := Eval hnf in FinType (option T) option_finMixin.
Lemma card_option : #|{: option T}| = #|T|.+1.
Proof. by rewrite !cardT !enumT {1}unlock /= !size_map. Qed.
End OptionFinType.
Now, suppose I have a function f from finType to Prop.
Variable T: finType.
Variable f: finType -> Prop.
Goal f T. (* Ok *)
Goal f bool. (* Not ok *)
Goal f (option T). (* Not ok *)
In the last two cases I get the following error:
The term "bool/option T" has type "Set/Type" while it is expected to have type "finType".
What am I doing wrong?
The instance search for canonical structures is a bit counter intuitive in these cases. Suppose that you have the following things:
a structure type S, and a type T;
a field proj : S -> T of S;
an element x : T; and
an element st : S that has been declared as canonical, such that proj st is defined as x.
In your example, we would have:
S = finType
T = Type
proj = Finite.sort
x = bool
st = bool_finType.
Canonical structure search is triggered only in the following case: when the type-checking algorithm is trying to find a value to validly fill in the hole in the equation proj _ = x. Then, it will use st : S to fill in this hole. In your example, you expected the algorithm to understand that bool can be used as finType, by transforming it into bool_finType, which is not quite what is described above.
To make Coq infer what you want, you need to use a unification problem of that form. For instance,
Variable P : finType -> Prop.
Check ((fun (T : finType) (x : T) => P T) _ true).
What is going on here? Remember that Finite.sort is declared as a coercion from finType to Type, so x : T really means x : Finite.sort T. When you apply the fun expression to true : bool, Coq has to find a solution for Finite.sort _ = bool. It then finds bool_finType, because it was declared as canonical. So the element of bool is what triggers the search, but not quite bool itself.
As ejgallego pointed out, this pattern is so common that ssreflect provides the special [finType of ...] syntax. But it might still be useful to understand what is going on under the hood.

Inductive definition for family of types

I have been struggling on this for a while now. I have an inductive type:
Definition char := nat.
Definition string := list char.
Inductive Exp : Set :=
| Lit : char -> Exp
| And : Exp -> Exp -> Exp
| Or : Exp -> Exp -> Exp
| Many: Exp -> Exp
from which I define a family of types inductively:
Inductive Language : Exp -> Set :=
| LangLit : forall c:char, Language (Lit c)
| LangAnd : forall r1 r2: Exp, Language(r1) -> Language(r2) -> Language(And r1 r2)
| LangOrLeft : forall r1 r2: Exp, Language(r1) -> Language(Or r1 r2)
| LangOrRight : forall r1 r2: Exp, Language(r2) -> Language(Or r1 r2)
| LangEmpty : forall r: Exp, Language (Many r)
| LangMany : forall r: Exp, Language (Many r) -> Language r -> Language (Many r).
The rational here is that given a regular expression r:Exp I am attempting to represent the language associated with r as a type Language r, and I am doing so with a single inductive definition.
I would like to prove:
Lemma L1 : forall (c:char)(x:Language (Lit c)),
x = LangLit c.
(In other words, the type Language (Lit c) has only one element, i.e. the language of the regular expression 'c' is made of the single string "c". Of course I need to define some semantics converting elements of Language r to string)
Now the specifics of this problem are not important and simply serve to motivate my question: let us use nat instead of Exp and let us define a type List n which represents the lists of length n:
Parameter A:Set.
Inductive List : nat -> Set :=
| ListNil : List 0
| ListCons : forall (n:nat), A -> List n -> List (S n).
Here again I am using a single inductive definition to define a family of types List n.
I would like to prove:
Lemma L2: forall (x: List 0),
x = ListNil.
(in other words, the type List 0 has only one element).
I have run out of ideas on this one.
Normally when attempting to prove (negative) results with inductive types (or predicates), I would use the elim tactic (having made sure all the relevant hypothesis are inside my goal (generalize) and only variables occur in the type constructors). But elim is no good in this case.
If you are willing to accept more than just the basic logic of Coq, you can just use the dependent destruction tactic, available in the Program library (I've taken the liberty of rephrasing your last example in terms of standard-library vectors):
Require Coq.Vectors.Vector.
Require Import Program.
Lemma l0 A (v : Vector.t A 0) : v = #Vector.nil A.
Proof.
now dependent destruction v.
Qed.
If you inspect the term, you'll see that this tactic relied on the JMeq_eq axiom to get the proof to go through:
Print Assumptions l0.
Axioms:
JMeq_eq : forall (A : Type) (x y : A), x ~= y -> x = y
Fortunately, it is possible to prove l0 without having to resort to features outside of Coq's basic logic, by making a small change to the statement of the previous lemma.
Lemma l0_gen A n (v : Vector.t A n) :
match n return Vector.t A n -> Prop with
| 0 => fun v => v = #Vector.nil A
| _ => fun _ => True
end v.
Proof.
now destruct v.
Qed.
Lemma l0' A (v : Vector.t A 0) : v = #Vector.nil A.
Proof.
exact (l0_gen A 0 v).
Qed.
We can see that this new proof does not require any additional axioms:
Print Assumptions l0'.
Closed under the global context
What happened here? The problem, roughly speaking, is that in Coq we cannot perform case analysis on terms of dependent types whose indices have a specific shape (such as 0, in your case) directly. Instead, we must prove a more general statement where the problematic indices are replaced by variables. This is exactly what the l0_gen lemma is doing. Notice how we had to make the match on n return a function that abstracts on v. This is another instance of what is known as "convoy pattern". Had we written
match n with
| 0 => v = #Vector.nil A
| _ => True
end.
Coq would see the v in the 0 branch as having type Vector.t A n, making that branch ill-typed.
Coming up with such generalizations is one of the big pains of doing dependently typed programming in Coq. Other systems, such as Agda, make it possible to write this kind of code with much less effort, but it was only recently shown that this can be done without relying on the extra axioms that Coq wanted to avoid including in its basic theory. We can only hope that this will be simplified in future versions.

How do I change a concrete variable to an existentially quantified var in a hypothesis?

Say I have a hypothesis like this:
FooProp a b
I want to change the hypothesis to this form:
exists a, FooProp a b
How can I do this?
I know I can do assert (exists a, FooProp a b) by eauto but I'm trying to find a solution that doesn't require me to explicitly write down the entire hypothesis; this is bad for automation and is just generally a headache when the hypothesis are nontrivial. Ideally I'd like to specify intro_exists a in H1 or something; it really should be that simple.
EDIT: Why? Because I have a lemma like this:
Lemma find_instr_in:
forall c i,
In i c <-> (exists z : Z, find_instr z c = Some i).
And a hypothesis like this:
H1: find_instr z c = Some i
And I'm trying to rewrite like this:
rewrite <- find_instr_in in H1
Which fails with the error Found no subterm matching "exists z, ..." .... But if I assert (exists z, find_instr z c = Some i) by eauto. first the rewrite works.
How about something like this:
Ltac intro_exists' a H :=
pattern a in H; apply ex_intro in H.
Tactic Notation "intro_exists" ident(a) "in" ident(H) := intro_exists' a H.
Section daryl.
Variable A B : Type.
Variable FooProp : A -> B -> Prop.
Goal forall a b, FooProp a b -> False.
intros.
intro_exists a in H.
Admitted.
End daryl.
The key to this is the pattern tactic, which finds occurrences of a term and abstracts them into a function applied to an argument. So pattern a converts the type of H from FooProp a b to (fun x => FooProp x b) a. After that, Coq can figure out what you mean when you apply ex_intro.
Edit:
All that being said, in your concrete case I would actually recommend a different approach, which is to not state your lemma like that. Instead it is convenient to split it into two lemmas, one for each direction. The forwards direction is just the same, but the backwards direction should be restated as follows
forall c i z,
find_instr z c = Some i -> In i c.
If you do this, then the rewrite will succeed without needing to introduce the existential.