Chapter 8  Tactics

A deduction rule is a link between some (unique) formula, that we call the conclusion and (several) formulas that we call the premises. A deduction rule can be read in two ways. The first one says: “if I know this and this then I can deduce this”. For instance, if I have a proof of A and a proof of B then I have a proof of A ∧ B. This is forward reasoning from premises to conclusion. The other way says: “to prove this I have to prove this and this”. For instance, to prove A ∧ B, I have to prove A and I have to prove B. This is backward reasoning from conclusion to premises. We say that the conclusion is the goal to prove and premises are the subgoals. The tactics implement backward reasoning. When applied to a goal, a tactic replaces this goal with the subgoals it generates. We say that a tactic reduces a goal to its subgoal(s).

Each (sub)goal is denoted with a number. The current goal is numbered 1. By default, a tactic is applied to the current goal, but one can address a particular goal in the list by writing n:tactic which means “apply tactic tactic to goal number n”. We can show the list of subgoals by typing Show (see Section 7.3.1).

Since not every rule applies to a given statement, every tactic cannot be used to reduce any goal. In other words, before applying a tactic to a given goal, the system checks that some preconditions are satisfied. If it is not the case, the tactic raises an error message.

Tactics are built from atomic tactics and tactic expressions (which extends the folklore notion of tactical) to combine those atomic tactics. This chapter is devoted to atomic tactics. The tactic language will be described in Chapter 9.

8.1  Invocation of tactics

A tactic is applied as an ordinary command. It may be preceded by a goal selector: all if the tactic is to be applied to every focused goal simultaneously, or a natural number n if it is to be applied to the n-th goal. If no selector is specified, the default selector (see Section 8.1.1) is used.

selector:=all | num
tactic_invocation::=selector : tactic .
 |tactic .

8.1.1  Set Default Goal Selector ‘‘selector’’.

After using this command, the default selector – used when no selector is specified when applying a tactic – is set to the chosen value. The initial value is 1, hence the tactics are, by default, applied to the first goal. Using Set Default Goal Selector ‘‘all’’ will make is so that tactics are, by default, applied to every goal simultaneously. Then, to apply a tactic tac to the first goal only, you can write 1:tac.

8.1.2  Test Default Goal Selector.

This command displays the current default selector.

8.1.3  Bindings list

Tactics that take a term as argument may also support a bindings list, so as to instantiate some parameters of the term by name or position. The general form of a term equipped with a bindings list is term with bindings_list where bindings_list may be of two different forms:

8.1.4  Occurrences sets and occurrences clauses

An occurrences clause is a modifier to some tactics that obeys the following syntax:

occurrence_clause::=in goal_occurrences
goal_occurrences::= [ident1 [at_occurrences] ,
  … ,
  identm [at_occurrences]]
  [|- [* [at_occurrences]]]
 | * |- [* [at_occurrences]]
 | *
at_occurrences::=at occurrences
occurrences::=[-] num1 … numn

The role of an occurrence clause is to select a set of occurrences of a term in a goal. In the first case, the identi [at num1i … numnii] parts indicate that occurrences have to be selected in the hypotheses named identi. If no numbers are given for hypothesis identi, then all the occurrences of term in the hypothesis are selected. If numbers are given, they refer to occurrences of term when the term is printed using option Set Printing All (see Section 2.9), counting from left to right. In particular, occurrences of term in implicit arguments (see Section 2.7) or coercions (see Section 2.8) are counted.

If a minus sign is given between at and the list of occurrences, it negates the condition so that the clause denotes all the occurrences except the ones explicitly mentioned after the minus sign.

As an exception to the left-to-right order, the occurrences in the return subexpression of a match are considered before the occurrences in the matched term.

In the second case, the * on the left of |- means that all occurrences of term are selected in every hypothesis.

In the first and second case, if * is mentioned on the right of |-, the occurrences of the conclusion of the goal have to be selected. If some numbers are given, then only the occurrences denoted by these numbers are selected. In no numbers are given, all occurrences of term in the goal are selected.

Finally, the last notation is an abbreviation for * |- *. Note also that |- is optional in the first case when no * is given.

Here are some tactics that understand occurrences clauses: set, remember, induction, destruct.


See also:  Sections 8.3.7, 8.5.2, 2.9.

8.2  Applying theorems

8.2.1  exact term

This tactic applies to any goal. It gives directly the exact proof term of the goal. Let T be our goal, let p be a term of type U then exact p succeeds iff T and U are convertible (see Section 4.3).


Error messages:

  1. Not an exact proof


Variants:

  1. eexact term

    This tactic behaves like exact but is able to handle terms and goals with meta-variables.

8.2.2  assumption

This tactic looks in the local context for an hypothesis which type is equal to the goal. If it is the case, the subgoal is proved. Otherwise, it fails.


Error messages:

  1. No such assumption


Variants:

  1. eassumption

    This tactic behaves like assumption but is able to handle goals with meta-variables.

8.2.3  refine term

This tactic applies to any goal. It behaves like exact with a big difference: the user can leave some holes (denoted by _ or (_:type)) in the term. refine will generate as many subgoals as there are holes in the term. The type of holes must be either synthesized by the system or declared by an explicit cast like (_:nat->Prop). Any subgoal that occurs in other subgoals is automatically shelved, as if calling shelve_unifiable (see Section 8.17.4). This low-level tactic can be useful to advanced users.


Example:

Coq < Inductive Option : Set :=
        | Fail : Option
        | Ok : bool -> Option.

Coq < Definition get : forall x:Option, x <> Fail -> bool.
1 subgoal
  
  ============================
  forall x : Option, x <> Fail -> bool

Coq < refine
       (fun x:Option =>
          match x return x <> Fail -> bool with
          | Fail => _
          | Ok b => fun _ => b
          end).
1 subgoal
  
  x : Option
  ============================
  Fail <> Fail -> bool

Coq < intros; absurd (Fail = Fail); trivial.
No more subgoals.

Coq < Defined.


Error messages:

  1. invalid argument: the tactic refine does not know what to do with the term you gave.
  2. Refine passed ill-formed term: the term you gave is not a valid proof (not easy to debug in general). This message may also occur in higher-level tactics that call refine internally.
  3. Cannot infer a term for this placeholder: there is a hole in the term you gave which type cannot be inferred. Put a cast around it.


Variants:

  1. simple refine term

    This tactic behaves like refine, but it does not shelve any subgoal. It does not perform any beta-reduction either.

8.2.4  apply term

This tactic applies to any goal. The argument term is a term well-formed in the local context. The tactic apply tries to match the current goal against the conclusion of the type of term. If it succeeds, then the tactic returns as many subgoals as the number of non-dependent premises of the type of term. If the conclusion of the type of term does not match the goal and the conclusion is an inductive type isomorphic to a tuple type, then each component of the tuple is recursively matched to the goal in the left-to-right order.

The tactic apply relies on first-order unification with dependent types unless the conclusion of the type of term is of the form (P t1 … tn) with P to be instantiated. In the latter case, the behavior depends on the form of the goal. If the goal is of the form (fun x => Q) u1 … un and the ti and ui unifies, then P is taken to be (fun x => Q). Otherwise, apply tries to define P by abstracting over t1 … tn in the goal. See pattern in Section 8.7.7 to transform the goal so that it gets the form (fun x => Q) u1 … un.


Error messages:

  1. Impossible to unify … with …

    The apply tactic failed to match the conclusion of term and the current goal. You can help the apply tactic by transforming your goal with the change or pattern tactics (see sections 8.7.7, 8.6.5).

  2. Unable to find an instance for the variables ident … ident

    This occurs when some instantiations of the premises of term are not deducible from the unification. This is the case, for instance, when you want to apply a transitivity property. In this case, you have to use one of the variants below:


Variants:

  1. apply term with term1 … termn

    Provides apply with explicit instantiations for all dependent premises of the type of term that do not occur in the conclusion and consequently cannot be found by unification. Notice that term1 … termn must be given according to the order of these dependent premises of the type of term.


    Error message: Not the right number of missing arguments

  2. apply term with (ref1 := term1) … (refn := termn)

    This also provides apply with values for instantiating premises. Here, variables are referred by names and non-dependent products by increasing numbers (see syntax in Section 8.1.3).

  3. apply term1 , … , termn

    This is a shortcut for apply term1 ; [ .. | … ; [ .. | apply termn ] … ], i.e. for the successive applications of termi+1 on the last subgoal generated by apply termi, starting from the application of term1.

  4. eapply term

    The tactic eapply behaves like apply but it does not fail when no instantiations are deducible for some variables in the premises. Rather, it turns these variables into existential variables which are variables still to instantiate (see Section 2.11). The instantiation is intended to be found later in the proof.

  5. simple apply term

    This behaves like apply but it reasons modulo conversion only on subterms that contain no variables to instantiate. For instance, the following example does not succeed because it would require the conversion of id ?foo and O.

    Coq < Definition id (x : nat) := x.

    Coq < Hypothesis H : forall y, id y = y.

    Coq < Goal O = O.

    Coq < Fail simple apply H.
    The command has indeed failed with message:
    Unable to unify "id ?M190 = ?M190" with "0 = 0".
    1 subgoal
      
      ============================
      0 = 0

    Because it reasons modulo a limited amount of conversion, simple apply fails quicker than apply and it is then well-suited for uses in used-defined tactics that backtrack often. Moreover, it does not traverse tuples as apply does.

  6. [simple] apply term1 [with bindings_list1] , …, termn [with bindings_listn]
    [simple] eapply term1 [with bindings_list1] , …, termn [with bindings_listn]

    This summarizes the different syntaxes for apply and eapply.

  7. lapply term

    This tactic applies to any goal, say G. The argument term has to be well-formed in the current context, its type being reducible to a non-dependent product A -> B with B possibly containing products. Then it generates two subgoals B->G and A. Applying lapply H (where H has type A->B and B does not start with a product) does the same as giving the sequence cut B. 2:apply H. where cut is described below.


    Warning: When term contains more than one non dependent product the tactic lapply only takes into account the first product.


Example: Assume we have a transitive relation R on nat:

Coq < Variable R : nat -> nat -> Prop.

Coq < Hypothesis Rtrans : forall x y z:nat, R x y -> R y z -> R x z.

Coq < Variables n m p : nat.

Coq < Hypothesis Rnm : R n m.

Coq < Hypothesis Rmp : R m p.

Consider the goal (R n p) provable using the transitivity of R:

Coq < Goal R n p.

The direct application of Rtrans with apply fails because no value for y in Rtrans is found by apply:

Coq < Fail apply Rtrans.
The command has indeed failed with message:
Unable to find an instance for the variable y.
1 subgoal
  
  ============================
  R n p

A solution is to apply (Rtrans n m p) or (Rtrans n m).

Coq < apply (Rtrans n m p).
2 subgoals
  
  ============================
  R n m
subgoal 2 is:
 R m p

Note that n can be inferred from the goal, so the following would work too.

Coq < apply (Rtrans _ m).

More elegantly, apply Rtrans with (y:=m) allows only mentioning the unknown m:

Coq < apply Rtrans with (y := m).

Another solution is to mention the proof of (R x y) in Rtrans …

Coq < apply Rtrans with (1 := Rnm).
1 subgoal
  
  ============================
  R m p

…or the proof of (R y z).

Coq < apply Rtrans with (2 := Rmp).
1 subgoal
  
  ============================
  R n m

On the opposite, one can use eapply which postpones the problem of finding m. Then one can apply the hypotheses Rnm and Rmp. This instantiates the existential variable and completes the proof.

Coq < eapply Rtrans.
2 focused subgoals
(shelved: 1)
  
  ============================
  R n ?y
subgoal 2 is:
 R ?y p

Coq < apply Rnm.
1 subgoal
  
  ============================
  R m p

Coq < apply Rmp.
No more subgoals.

Remark: When the conclusion of the type of the term to apply is an inductive type isomorphic to a tuple type and apply looks recursively whether a component of the tuple matches the goal, it excludes components whose statement would result in applying an universal lemma of the form forall A, ... -> A. Excluding this kind of lemma can be avoided by setting the following option:

Set Universal Lemma Under Conjunction

This option, which preserves compatibility with versions of Coq prior to 8.4 is also available for apply term in ident (see Section 8.2.5).

8.2.5  apply term in ident

This tactic applies to any goal. The argument term is a term well-formed in the local context and the argument ident is an hypothesis of the context. The tactic apply term in ident tries to match the conclusion of the type of ident against a non-dependent premise of the type of term, trying them from right to left. If it succeeds, the statement of hypothesis ident is replaced by the conclusion of the type of term. The tactic also returns as many subgoals as the number of other non-dependent premises in the type of term and of the non-dependent premises of the type of ident. If the conclusion of the type of term does not match the goal and the conclusion is an inductive type isomorphic to a tuple type, then the tuple is (recursively) decomposed and the first component of the tuple of which a non-dependent premise matches the conclusion of the type of ident. Tuples are decomposed in a width-first left-to-right order (for instance if the type of H1 is a A <-> B statement, and the type of H2 is A then apply H1 in H2 transforms the type of H2 into B). The tactic apply relies on first-order pattern-matching with dependent types.


Error messages:

  1. Statement without assumptions

    This happens if the type of term has no non dependent premise.

  2. Unable to apply

    This happens if the conclusion of ident does not match any of the non dependent premises of the type of term.


Variants:

  1. apply term , … , term in ident

    This applies each of term in sequence in ident.

  2. apply term with bindings_list , … , term with bindings_list in ident

    This does the same but uses the bindings in each bindings_list to instantiate the parameters of the corresponding type of term (see syntax of bindings in Section 8.1.3).

  3. eapply term with bindings_list , … , term with bindings_list in ident

    This works as apply term with bindings_list , … , term with bindings_list in ident but turns unresolved bindings into existential variables, if any, instead of failing.

  4. apply term with bindings_list , … , term with bindings_list in ident as intro_pattern

    This works as apply term with bindings_list , … , term with bindings_list in ident then applies the intro_pattern to the hypothesis ident.

  5. eapply term with bindings_list , … , term with bindings_list in ident as intro_pattern

    This works as apply term with bindings_list , … , term with bindings_list in ident as intro_pattern but using eapply.

  6. simple apply term in ident

    This behaves like apply term in ident but it reasons modulo conversion only on subterms that contain no variables to instantiate. For instance, if id := fun x:nat => x and H : forall y, id y = y -> True and H0 : O = O then simple apply H in H0 does not succeed because it would require the conversion of id ?1234 and O where ?1234 is a variable to instantiate. Tactic simple apply term in ident does not either traverse tuples as apply term in ident does.

  7. [simple] apply term [with bindings_list] , … , term [with bindings_list] in ident [as intro_pattern]
    [simple] eapply term [with bindings_list] , … , term [with bindings_list] in ident [as intro_pattern]

    This summarizes the different syntactic variants of apply term in ident and eapply term in ident.

8.2.6  constructor num

This tactic applies to a goal such that its conclusion is an inductive type (say I). The argument num must be less or equal to the numbers of constructor(s) of I. Let ci be the i-th constructor of I, then constructor i is equivalent to intros; apply ci.


Error messages:

  1. Not an inductive product
  2. Not enough constructors


Variants:

  1. constructor

    This tries constructor 1 then constructor 2, … , then constructor n where n is the number of constructors of the head of the goal.

  2. constructor num with bindings_list

    Let ci be the i-th constructor of I, then constructor i with bindings_list is equivalent to intros; apply ci with bindings_list.


    Warning: the terms in the bindings_list are checked in the context where constructor is executed and not in the context where apply is executed (the introductions are not taken into account).

  3. split

    This applies only if I has a single constructor. It is then equivalent to constructor 1. It is typically used in the case of a conjunction A∧ B.


    Error message: Not an inductive goal with 1 constructor

  4. exists bindings_list

    This applies only if I has a single constructor. It is then equivalent to intros; constructor 1 with bindings_list. It is typically used in the case of an existential quantification ∃ x, P(x).


    Error message: Not an inductive goal with 1 constructor

  5. exists bindings_list , … , bindings_list

    This iteratively applies exists bindings_list.

  6. left
    right

    These tactics apply only if I has two constructors, for instance in the case of a disjunction A∨ B. Then, they are respectively equivalent to constructor 1 and constructor 2.


    Error message: Not an inductive goal with 2 constructors

  7. left with bindings_list
    right with bindings_list
    split with bindings_list

    As soon as the inductive type has the right number of constructors, these expressions are equivalent to calling constructor i with bindings_list for the appropriate i.

  8. econstructor
    eexists
    esplit
    eleft
    eright

    These tactics and their variants behave like constructor, exists, split, left, right and their variants but they introduce existential variables instead of failing when the instantiation of a variable cannot be found (cf eapply and Section 8.2.4).

8.3  Managing the local context

8.3.1  intro

This tactic applies to a goal that is either a product or starts with a let binder. If the goal is a product, the tactic implements the “Lam” rule given in Section 4.21. If the goal starts with a let binder, then the tactic implements a mix of the “Let” and “Conv”.

If the current goal is a dependent product ∀ x:T, U (resp let x:=t in U) then intro puts x:T (resp x:=t) in the local context. The new subgoal is U.

If the goal is a non-dependent product T → U, then it puts in the local context either Hn:T (if T is of type Set or Prop) or Xn:T (if the type of T is Type). The optional index n is such that Hn or Xn is a fresh identifier. In both cases, the new subgoal is U.

If the goal is neither a product nor starting with a let definition, the tactic intro applies the tactic hnf until the tactic intro can be applied or the goal is not head-reducible.


Error messages:

  1. No product even after head-reduction
  2. ident is already used


Variants:

  1. intros

    This repeats intro until it meets the head-constant. It never reduces head-constants and it never fails.

  2. intro ident

    This applies intro but forces ident to be the name of the introduced hypothesis.


    Error message: name ident is already used


    Remark: If a name used by intro hides the base name of a global constant then the latter can still be referred to by a qualified name (see 2.6.2).

  3. intros ident1 … identn

    This is equivalent to the composed tactic intro ident1; … ; intro identn.

    More generally, the intros tactic takes a pattern as argument in order to introduce names for components of an inductive definition or to clear introduced hypotheses. This is explained in 8.3.2.

  4. intros until ident

    This repeats intro until it meets a premise of the goal having form ( ident : term ) and discharges the variable named ident of the current goal.


    Error message: No such hypothesis in current goal

  5. intros until num

    This repeats intro until the num-th non-dependent product. For instance, on the subgoal forall x y:nat, x=y -> y=x the tactic intros until 1 is equivalent to intros x y H, as x=y -> y=x is the first non-dependent product. And on the subgoal forall x y z:nat, x=y -> y=x the tactic intros until 1 is equivalent to intros x y z as the product on z can be rewritten as a non-dependent product: forall x y:nat, nat -> x=y -> y=x


    Error message: No such hypothesis in current goal

    This happens when num is 0 or is greater than the number of non-dependent products of the goal.

  6. intro after ident
    intro before ident
    intro at top
    intro at bottom

    These tactics apply intro and move the freshly introduced hypothesis respectively after the hypothesis ident, before the hypothesis ident, at the top of the local context, or at the bottom of the local context. All hypotheses on which the new hypothesis depends are moved too so as to respect the order of dependencies between hypotheses. Note that intro at bottom is a synonym for intro with no argument.


    Error message: No such hypothesis : ident

  7. intro ident1 after ident2
    intro ident1 before ident2
    intro ident1 at top
    intro ident1 at bottom

    These tactics behave as previously but naming the introduced hypothesis ident1. It is equivalent to intro ident1 followed by the appropriate call to move (see Section 8.3.5).

8.3.2  intros intro_pattern … intro_pattern

This extension of the tactic intros combines introduction of variables or hypotheses and case analysis. An introduction pattern is either:

Introduction patterns can be combined into lists. An introduction pattern list is a list of introduction patterns possibly containing the filling introduction patterns * and **.

Assuming a goal of type Q → P (non-dependent product), or of type ∀ x:T, P (dependent product), the behavior of intros p is defined inductively over the structure of the introduction pattern p:

Then, if p1 ... pn is a list of introduction patterns possibly containing * or **, intros p1 ... pn


Example:

Coq < Goal forall A B C:Prop, A \/ B /\ C -> (A -> C) -> C.
1 subgoal
  
  ============================
  forall A B C : Prop, A \/ B /\ C -> (A -> C) -> C

Coq < intros * [a | (_,c)] f.
2 subgoals
  
  A, B, C : Prop
  a : A
  f : A -> C
  ============================
  C
subgoal 2 is:
 C


Remark: intros p1 … pn is not fully equivalent to intros p1;…; intros pn for the following reasons:

This later behavior can be avoided by setting the following option:

Set Bracketing Last Introduction Pattern

8.3.3  clear ident

This tactic erases the hypothesis named ident in the local context of the current goal. As a consequence, ident is no more displayed and no more usable in the proof development.


Error messages:

  1. No such hypothesis
  2. ident is used in the conclusion
  3. ident is used in the hypothesis ident’


Variants:

  1. clear ident1 … identn

    This is equivalent to clear ident1. … clear identn.

  2. clearbody ident

    This tactic expects ident to be a local definition then clears its body. Otherwise said, this tactic turns a definition into an assumption.


    Error message: ident is not a local definition

  3. clear - ident1 … identn

    This tactic clears all the hypotheses except the ones depending in the hypotheses named ident1 … identn and in the goal.

  4. clear

    This tactic clears all the hypotheses except the ones the goal depends on.

  5. clear dependent ident

    This clears the hypothesis ident and all the hypotheses that depend on it.

8.3.4  revert ident1 … identn

This applies to any goal with variables ident1 … identn. It moves the hypotheses (possibly defined) to the goal, if this respects dependencies. This tactic is the inverse of intro.


Error messages:

  1. No such hypothesis
  2. ident is used in the hypothesis ident’


Variants:

  1. revert dependent ident

    This moves to the goal the hypothesis ident and all the hypotheses that depend on it.

8.3.5  move ident1 after ident2

This moves the hypothesis named ident1 in the local context after the hypothesis named ident2. The proof term is not changed.

If ident1 comes before ident2 in the order of dependencies, then all the hypotheses between ident1 and ident2 that (possibly indirectly) depend on ident1 are moved too.

If ident1 comes after ident2 in the order of dependencies, then all the hypotheses between ident1 and ident2 that (possibly indirectly) occur in ident1 are moved too.


Variants:

  1. move ident1 before ident2

    This moves ident1 towards and just before the hypothesis named ident2.

  2. move ident at top

    This moves ident at the top of the local context (at the beginning of the context).

  3. move ident at bottom

    This moves ident at the bottom of the local context (at the end of the context).


Error messages:

  1. No such hypothesis
  2. Cannot move ident1 after ident2: it occurs in ident2
  3. Cannot move ident1 after ident2: it depends on ident2

8.3.6  rename ident1 into ident2

This renames hypothesis ident1 into ident2 in the current context. The name of the hypothesis in the proof-term, however, is left unchanged.


Variants:

  1. rename ident1 into ident2, …, ident2k−1 into ident2k

    This renames the variables ident1 …ident2k−1 into respectively ident2 …ident2k in parallel. In particular, the target identifiers may contain identifiers that exist in the source context, as long as the latter are also renamed by the same tactic.


Error messages:

  1. No such hypothesis
  2. ident2 is already used

8.3.7  set ( ident := term )

This replaces term by ident in the conclusion of the current goal and adds the new definition ident := term to the local context.

If term has holes (i.e. subexpressions of the form “_”), the tactic first checks that all subterms matching the pattern are compatible before doing the replacement using the leftmost subterm matching the pattern.


Error messages:

  1. The variable ident is already defined


Variants:

  1. set ( ident := term ) in goal_occurrences

    This notation allows specifying which occurrences of term have to be substituted in the context. The in goal_occurrences clause is an occurrence clause whose syntax and behavior are described in Section 8.1.4.

  2. set ( ident binder … binder := term )

    This is equivalent to set ( ident := fun binder … binder => term ).

  3. set term

    This behaves as set ( ident := term ) but ident is generated by Coq. This variant also supports an occurrence clause.

  4. set ( ident0 binder … binder := term ) in goal_occurrences
    set term in goal_occurrences

    These are the general forms that combine the previous possibilities.

  5. remember term as ident

    This behaves as set ( ident := term ) in * and using a logical (Leibniz’s) equality instead of a local definition.

  6. remember term as ident eqn:ident

    This behaves as remember term as ident, except that the name of the generated equality is also given.

  7. remember term as ident in goal_occurrences

    This is a more general form of remember that remembers the occurrences of term specified by an occurrences set.

  8. pose ( ident := term )

    This adds the local definition ident := term to the current context without performing any replacement in the goal or in the hypotheses. It is equivalent to set ( ident := term ) in |-.

  9. pose ( ident binder … binder := term )

    This is equivalent to pose ( ident := fun binder … binder => term ).

  10. pose term

    This behaves as pose ( ident := term ) but ident is generated by Coq.

8.3.8  decompose [ qualid1 … qualidn ] term

This tactic recursively decomposes a complex proposition in order to obtain atomic ones.


Example:

Coq < Goal forall A B C:Prop, A /\ B /\ C \/ B /\ C \/ C /\ A -> C.
1 subgoal
  
  ============================
  forall A B C : Prop, A /\ B /\ C \/ B /\ C \/ C /\ A -> C

Coq < intros A B C H; decompose [and or] H; assumption.
No more subgoals.

Coq < Qed.

decompose does not work on right-hand sides of implications or products.


Variants:

  1. decompose sum term

    This decomposes sum types (like or).

  2. decompose record term

    This decomposes record types (inductive types with one constructor, like and and exists and those defined with the Record macro, see Section 2.1).

8.4  Controlling the proof flow

8.4.1  assert ( ident : form )

This tactic applies to any goal. assert (H : U) adds a new hypothesis of name H asserting U to the current goal and opens a new subgoal U2. The subgoal U comes first in the list of subgoals remaining to prove.


Error messages:

  1. Not a proposition or a type

    Arises when the argument form is neither of type Prop, Set nor Type.


Variants:

  1. assert form

    This behaves as assert ( ident : form ) but ident is generated by Coq.

  2. assert form by tactic

    This tactic behaves like assert but applies tactic to solve the subgoals generated by assert.


    Error message: Proof is not complete

  3. assert form as intro_pattern

    If intro_pattern is a naming introduction pattern (see Section 8.3.2), the hypothesis is named after this introduction pattern (in particular, if intro_pattern is ident, the tactic behaves like assert (ident : form)).

    If intro_pattern is a disjunctive/conjunctive introduction pattern, the tactic behaves like assert form followed by a destruct using this introduction pattern.

    If intro_pattern is a rewriting intropattern pattern, the tactic behaves like assert form followed by a call to subst on the resulting hypothesis, if applicable, or to rewrite otherwise.

    If intro_pattern is an injection intropattern pattern, the tactic behaves like assert form followed by injection using this introduction pattern.

  4. assert form as intro_pattern by tactic

    This combines the two previous variants of assert.

  5. assert ( ident := term )

    This behaves as assert (ident : type);[exact term|idtac] where type is the type of term. This is deprecated in favor of pose proof.


    Error message: Variable ident is already declared

  6. pose proof term as intro_pattern

    This tactic behaves like assert T as intro_pattern by exact term where T is the type of term.

    In particular, pose proof term as ident behaves as assert (ident := term) and pose proof term as intro_pattern is the same as applying the intro_pattern to term.

  7. enough (ident : form)

    This adds a new hypothesis of name ident asserting form to the goal the tactic enough is applied to. A new subgoal stating form is inserted after the initial goal rather than before it as assert would do.

  8. enough form

    This behaves like enough (ident : form) with the name ident of the hypothesis generated by Coq.

  9. enough form as intro_pattern

    This behaves like enough form using intro_pattern to name or destruct the new hypothesis.

  10. enough (ident : form) by tactic
    enough form by tactic
    enough form as intro_pattern by tactic

    This behaves as above but with tactic expected to solve the initial goal after the extra assumption form is added and possibly destructed. If the as intro_pattern clause generates more than one subgoal, tactic is applied to all of them.

  11. cut form

    This tactic applies to any goal. It implements the non-dependent case of the “App” rule given in Section 4.2. (This is Modus Ponens inference rule.) cut U transforms the current goal T into the two following subgoals: U -> T and U. The subgoal U -> T comes first in the list of remaining subgoal to prove.

  12. specialize (ident term1 … termn)
    specialize ident with bindings_list

    The tactic specialize works on local hypothesis ident. The premises of this hypothesis (either universal quantifications or non-dependent implications) are instantiated by concrete terms coming either from arguments term1 … termn or from a bindings list (see Section 8.1.3 for more about bindings lists). In the second form, all instantiation elements must be given, whereas in the first form the application to term1 … termn can be partial. The first form is equivalent to assert (ident’ := ident term1 … termn); clear ident; rename ident’ into ident.

    The name ident can also refer to a global lemma or hypothesis. In this case, for compatibility reasons, the behavior of specialize is close to that of generalize: the instantiated statement becomes an additional premise of the goal.


    Error messages:

    1. ident is used in hypothesis ident’
    2. ident is used in conclusion

8.4.2  generalize term

This tactic applies to any goal. It generalizes the conclusion with respect to some term.


Example:

Coq < Show.
1 subgoal
  
  x, y : nat
  ============================
  0 <= x + y + y

Coq < generalize (x + y + y).
1 subgoal
  
  x, y : nat
  ============================
  forall n : nat, 0 <= n

If the goal is G and t is a subterm of type T in the goal, then generalize t replaces the goal by forall (x:T), G′ where G′ is obtained from G by replacing all occurrences of t by x. The name of the variable (here n) is chosen based on T.


Variants:

  1. generalize term1 , … , termn

    This is equivalent to generalize termn; … ; generalize term1. Note that the sequence of termi’s are processed from n to 1.

  2. generalize term at num1 … numi

    This is equivalent to generalize term but it generalizes only over the specified occurrences of term (counting from left to right on the expression printed using option Set Printing All).

  3. generalize term as ident

    This is equivalent to generalize term but it uses ident to name the generalized hypothesis.

  4. generalize term1 at num11 … num1i1 as ident1 , … , termn at numn1 … numnin as ident2

    This is the most general form of generalize that combines the previous behaviors.

  5. generalize dependent term

    This generalizes term but also all hypotheses that depend on term. It clears the generalized hypotheses.

8.4.3  evar ( ident : term )

The evar tactic creates a new local definition named ident with type term in the context. The body of this binding is a fresh existential variable.

8.4.4  instantiate ( num := term )

The instantiate tactic refines (see Section 8.2.3) an existential variable with the term term. The num argument is the position of the existential variable from right to left in the conclusion. This cannot be the number of the existential variable since this number is different in every session.

When you are referring to hypotheses which you did not name explicitly, be aware that Coq may make a different decision on how to name the variable in the current goal and in the context of the existential variable. This can lead to surprising behaviors.


Variants:

  1. instantiate ( num := term ) in ident
  2. instantiate ( num := term ) in ( Value of ident )
  3. instantiate ( num := term ) in ( Type of ident )

    These allow to refer respectively to existential variables occurring in a hypothesis or in the body or the type of a local definition.

  4. instantiate

    Without argument, the instantiate tactic tries to solve as many existential variables as possible, using information gathered from other tactics in the same tactical. This is automatically done after each complete tactic (i.e. after a dot in proof mode), but not, for example, between each tactic when they are sequenced by semicolons.

8.4.5  admit

The admit tactic allows temporarily skipping a subgoal so as to progress further in the rest of the proof. A proof containing admitted goals cannot be closed with Qed but only with Admitted.


Variants:

  1. give_up

    Synonym of admit.

8.4.6  absurd term

This tactic applies to any goal. The argument term is any proposition P of type Prop. This tactic applies False elimination, that is it deduces the current goal from False, and generates as subgoals ∼P and P. It is very useful in proofs by cases, where some cases are impossible. In most cases, P or ∼P is one of the hypotheses of the local context.

8.4.7  contradiction

This tactic applies to any goal. The contradiction tactic attempts to find in the current context (after all intros) one hypothesis that is equivalent to False. It permits to prune irrelevant cases. This tactic is a macro for the tactics sequence intros; elimtype False; assumption.


Error messages:

  1. No such assumption


Variants:

  1. contradiction ident

    The proof of False is searched in the hypothesis named ident.

8.4.8  contradict ident

This tactic allows manipulating negated hypothesis and goals. The name ident should correspond to a hypothesis. With contradict H, the current goal and context is transformed in the following way:

8.4.9  exfalso

This tactic implements the “ex falso quodlibet” logical principle: an elimination of False is performed on the current goal, and the user is then required to prove that False is indeed provable in the current context. This tactic is a macro for elimtype False.

8.5  Case analysis and induction

The tactics presented in this section implement induction or case analysis on inductive or co-inductive objects (see Section 4.5).

8.5.1  destruct term

This tactic applies to any goal. The argument term must be of inductive or co-inductive type and the tactic generates subgoals, one for each possible form of term, i.e. one for each constructor of the inductive or co-inductive type. Unlike induction, no induction hypothesis is generated by destruct.

There are special cases:


Variants:

  1. destruct term1, …, termn

    This is a shortcut for destruct term1; …; destruct termn.

  2. destruct term as disj_conj_intro_pattern

    This behaves as destruct term but uses the names in intro_pattern to name the variables introduced in the context. The intro_pattern must have the form [ p11 …p1n1 | … | pm1 …pmnm ] with m being the number of constructors of the type of term. Each variable introduced by destruct in the context of the ith goal gets its name from the list pi1 …pini in order. If there are not enough names, destruct invents names for the remaining variables to introduce. More generally, the pij can be any introduction pattern (see Section 8.3.2). This provides a concise notation for chaining destruction of an hypothesis.

  3. destruct term eqn:naming_intro_pattern

    This behaves as destruct term but adds an equation between term and the value that term takes in each of the possible cases. The name of the equation is specified by naming_intro_pattern (see Section 8.3.2), in particular ? can be used to let Coq generate a fresh name.

  4. destruct term with bindings_list

    This behaves like destruct term providing explicit instances for the dependent premises of the type of term (see syntax of bindings in Section 8.1.3).

  5. edestruct term

    This tactic behaves like destruct term except that it does not fail if the instance of a dependent premises of the type of term is not inferable. Instead, the unresolved instances are left as existential variables to be inferred later, in the same way as eapply does (see Section 8.2.4).

  6. destruct term1 using term2
    destruct term1 using term2 with bindings_list

    These are synonyms of induction term1 using term2 and induction term1 using term2 with bindings_list.

  7. destruct term in goal_occurrences

    This syntax is used for selecting which occurrences of term the case analysis has to be done on. The in goal_occurrences clause is an occurrence clause whose syntax and behavior is described in Section 8.1.4.

  8. destruct term1 with bindings_list1 as disj_conj_intro_pattern eqn:naming_intro_pattern using term2 with bindings_list2 in goal_occurrences
    edestruct term1 with bindings_list1 as disj_conj_intro_pattern eqn:naming_intro_pattern using term2 with bindings_list2 in goal_occurrences

    These are the general forms of destruct and edestruct. They combine the effects of the with, as, eqn:, using, and in clauses.

  9. case term

    The tactic case is a more basic tactic to perform case analysis without recursion. It behaves as elim term but using a case-analysis elimination principle and not a recursive one.

  10. case term with bindings_list

    Analogous to elim term with bindings_list above.

  11. ecase term
    ecase term with bindings_list

    In case the type of term has dependent premises, or dependent premises whose values are not inferable from the with bindings_list clause, ecase turns them into existential variables to be resolved later on.

  12. simple destruct ident

    This tactic behaves as intros until ident; case ident when ident is a quantified variable of the goal.

  13. simple destruct num

    This tactic behaves as intros until num; case ident where ident is the name given by intros until num to the num-th non-dependent premise of the goal.

  14. case_eq term

    The tactic case_eq is a variant of the case tactic that allow to perform case analysis on a term without completely forgetting its original form. This is done by generating equalities between the original form of the term and the outcomes of the case analysis.

8.5.2  induction term

This tactic applies to any goal. The argument term must be of inductive type and the tactic induction generates subgoals, one for each possible form of term, i.e. one for each constructor of the inductive type.

If the argument is dependent in either the conclusion or some hypotheses of the goal, the argument is replaced by the appropriate constructor form in each of the resulting subgoals and induction hypotheses are added to the local context using names whose prefix is IH.

There are particular cases:


Example:

Coq < Lemma induction_test : forall n:nat, n = n -> n <= n.
1 subgoal
  
  ============================
  forall n : nat, n = n -> n <= n

Coq < intros n H.
1 subgoal
  
  n : nat
  H : n = n
  ============================
  n <= n

Coq < induction n.
2 subgoals
  
  H : 0 = 0
  ============================
  0 <= 0
subgoal 2 is:
 S n <= S n


Error messages:

  1. Not an inductive product
  2. Unable to find an instance for the variables ident …ident

    Use in this case the variant elim … with … below.


Variants:

  1. induction term as disj_conj_intro_pattern

    This behaves as induction term but uses the names in disj_conj_intro_pattern to name the variables introduced in the context. The disj_conj_intro_pattern must typically be of the form [ p11 … p1n1 | … | pm1 … pmnm ] with m being the number of constructors of the type of term. Each variable introduced by induction in the context of the ith goal gets its name from the list pi1 … pini in order. If there are not enough names, induction invents names for the remaining variables to introduce. More generally, the pij can be any disjunctive/conjunctive introduction pattern (see Section 8.3.2). For instance, for an inductive type with one constructor, the pattern notation (p1 , … , pn) can be used instead of [ p1 … pn ].

  2. induction term with bindings_list

    This behaves like induction term providing explicit instances for the premises of the type of term (see the syntax of bindings in Section 8.1.3).

  3. einduction term

    This tactic behaves like induction term excepts that it does not fail if some dependent premise of the type of term is not inferable. Instead, the unresolved premises are posed as existential variables to be inferred later, in the same way as eapply does (see Section 8.2.4).

  4. induction term1 using term2

    This behaves as induction term1 but using term2 as induction scheme. It does not expect the conclusion of the type of term1 to be inductive.

  5. induction term1 using term2 with bindings_list

    This behaves as induction term1 using term2 but also providing instances for the premises of the type of term2.

  6. induction term1, …, termn using qualid

    This syntax is used for the case qualid denotes an induction principle with complex predicates as the induction principles generated by Function or Functional Scheme may be.

  7. induction term in goal_occurrences

    This syntax is used for selecting which occurrences of term the induction has to be carried on. The in goal_occurrences clause is an occurrence clause whose syntax and behavior is described in Section 8.1.4. If variables or hypotheses not mentioning term in their type are listed in goal_occurrences, those are generalized as well in the statement to prove.


    Example:

    Coq < Lemma comm x y : x + y = y + x.
    1 subgoal
      
      x, y : nat
      ============================
      x + y = y + x

    Coq < induction y in x |- *.
    2 subgoals
      
      x : nat
      ============================
      x + 0 = 0 + x
    subgoal 2 is:
     x + S y = S y + x

    Coq < Show 2.
    subgoal 2 is:
      
      x, y : nat
      IHy : forall x : nat, x + y = y + x
      ============================
      x + S y = S y + x
  8. induction term1 with bindings_list1 as disj_conj_intro_pattern using term2 with bindings_list2 in goal_occurrences
    einduction term1 with bindings_list1 as disj_conj_intro_pattern using term2 with bindings_list2 in goal_occurrences

    These are the most general forms of induction and einduction. It combines the effects of the with, as, using, and in clauses.

  9. elim term

    This is a more basic induction tactic. Again, the type of the argument term must be an inductive type. Then, according to the type of the goal, the tactic elim chooses the appropriate destructor and applies it as the tactic apply would do. For instance, if the proof context contains n:nat and the current goal is T of type Prop, then elim n is equivalent to apply nat_ind with (n:=n). The tactic elim does not modify the context of the goal, neither introduces the induction loading into the context of hypotheses.

    More generally, elim term also works when the type of term is a statement with premises and whose conclusion is inductive. In that case the tactic performs induction on the conclusion of the type of term and leaves the non-dependent premises of the type as subgoals. In the case of dependent products, the tactic tries to find an instance for which the elimination lemma applies and fails otherwise.

  10. elim term with bindings_list

    Allows to give explicit instances to the premises of the type of term (see Section 8.1.3).

  11. eelim term

    In case the type of term has dependent premises, this turns them into existential variables to be resolved later on.

  12. elim term1 using term2
    elim term1 using term2 with bindings_list

    Allows the user to give explicitly an elimination predicate term2 that is not the standard one for the underlying inductive type of term1. The bindings_list clause allows instantiating premises of the type of term2.

  13. elim term1 with bindings_list1 using term2 with bindings_list2
    eelim term1 with bindings_list1 using term2 with bindings_list2

    These are the most general forms of elim and eelim. It combines the effects of the using clause and of the two uses of the with clause.

  14. elimtype form

    The argument form must be inductively defined. elimtype I is equivalent to cut I. intro Hn; elim Hn; clear Hn. Therefore the hypothesis Hn will not appear in the context(s) of the subgoal(s). Conversely, if t is a term of (inductive) type I that does not occur in the goal, then elim t is equivalent to elimtype I; 2: exact t.

  15. simple induction ident

    This tactic behaves as intros until ident; elim ident when ident is a quantified variable of the goal.

  16. simple induction num

    This tactic behaves as intros until num; elim ident where ident is the name given by intros until num to the num-th non-dependent premise of the goal.

8.5.3  double induction ident1 ident2

This tactic is deprecated and should be replaced by induction ident1; induction ident2 (or induction ident1; destruct ident2 depending on the exact needs).


Variant:

  1. double induction num1 num2

    This tactic is deprecated and should be replaced by induction num1; induction num3 where num3 is the result of num2-num1.

8.5.4  dependent induction ident

The experimental tactic dependent induction performs induction-inversion on an instantiated inductive predicate. One needs to first require the Coq.Program.Equality module to use this tactic. The tactic is based on the BasicElim tactic by Conor McBride [107] and the work of Cristina Cornes around inversion [36]. From an instantiated inductive predicate and a goal, it generates an equivalent goal where the hypothesis has been generalized over its indexes which are then constrained by equalities to be the right instances. This permits to state lemmas without resorting to manually adding these equalities and still get enough information in the proofs.


Example:

Coq < Lemma le_minus : forall n:nat, n < 1 -> n = 0.
1 subgoal
  
  ============================
  forall n : nat, n < 1 -> n = 0

Coq < intros n H ; induction H.
2 subgoals
  
  n : nat
  ============================
  n = 0
subgoal 2 is:
 n = 0

Here we did not get any information on the indexes to help fulfill this proof. The problem is that, when we use the induction tactic, we lose information on the hypothesis instance, notably that the second argument is 1 here. Dependent induction solves this problem by adding the corresponding equality to the context.

Coq < Require Import Coq.Program.Equality.

Coq < Lemma le_minus : forall n:nat, n < 1 -> n = 0.
1 subgoal
  
  ============================
  forall n : nat, n < 1 -> n = 0

Coq < intros n H ; dependent induction H.
2 subgoals
  
  ============================
  0 = 0
subgoal 2 is:
 n = 0

The subgoal is cleaned up as the tactic tries to automatically simplify the subgoals with respect to the generated equalities. In this enriched context, it becomes possible to solve this subgoal.

Coq < reflexivity.
1 subgoal
  
  n : nat
  H : S n <= 0
  IHle : 0 = 1 -> n = 0
  ============================
  n = 0

Now we are in a contradictory context and the proof can be solved.

Coq < inversion H.
No more subgoals.

This technique works with any inductive predicate. In fact, the dependent induction tactic is just a wrapper around the induction tactic. One can make its own variant by just writing a new tactic based on the definition found in Coq.Program.Equality.


Variants:

  1. dependent induction ident generalizing ident1 …identn

    This performs dependent induction on the hypothesis ident but first generalizes the goal by the given variables so that they are universally quantified in the goal. This is generally what one wants to do with the variables that are inside some constructors in the induction hypothesis. The other ones need not be further generalized.

  2. dependent destruction ident

    This performs the generalization of the instance ident but uses destruct instead of induction on the generalized hypothesis. This gives results equivalent to inversion or dependent inversion if the hypothesis is dependent.


See also: 10.1 for a larger example of dependent induction and an explanation of the underlying technique.

8.5.5  functional induction (qualid term1 … termn)

The tactic functional induction performs case analysis and induction following the definition of a function. It makes use of a principle generated by Function (see Section 2.3) or Functional Scheme (see Section 13.2).

Coq < Functional Scheme minus_ind := Induction for minus Sort Prop.
sub_equation is defined
minus_ind is defined

Coq < Check minus_ind.
minus_ind
     : forall P : nat -> nat -> nat -> Prop,
       (forall n m : nat, n = 0 -> P 0 m n) ->
       (forall n m k : nat, n = S k -> m = 0 -> P (S k) 0 n) ->
       (forall n m k : nat,
        n = S k ->
        forall l : nat, m = S l -> P k l (k - l) -> P (S k) (S l) (k - l)) ->
       forall n m : nat, P n m (n - m)

Coq < Lemma le_minus (n m:nat) : n - m <= n.
1 subgoal
  
  n, m : nat
  ============================
  n - m <= n

Coq < functional induction (minus n m) using minus_ind; simpl; auto.
No more subgoals.

Coq < Qed.


Remark: (qualid term1 … termn) must be a correct full application of qualid. In particular, the rules for implicit arguments are the same as usual. For example use @qualid if you want to write implicit arguments explicitly.


Remark: Parentheses over qualid…termn are mandatory.


Remark: functional induction (f x1 x2 x3) is actually a wrapper for induction x1, x2, x3, (f x1 x2 x3) using qualid followed by a cleaning phase, where qualid is the induction principle registered for f (by the Function (see Section 2.3) or Functional Scheme (see Section 13.2) command) corresponding to the sort of the goal. Therefore functional induction may fail if the induction scheme qualid is not defined. See also Section 2.3 for the function terms accepted by Function.


Remark: There is a difference between obtaining an induction scheme for a function by using Function (see Section 2.3) and by using Functional Scheme after a normal definition using Fixpoint or Definition. See 2.3 for details.


See also: 2.3,13.2,13.2, 8.14.1


Error messages:

  1. Cannot find induction information on qualid
  2. Not the right number of induction arguments


Variants:

  1. functional induction (qualid term1 … termn) as disj_conj_intro_pattern using termm+1 with bindings_list

    Similarly to Induction and elim (see Section 8.5.2), this allows giving explicitly the name of the introduced variables, the induction principle, and the values of dependent premises of the elimination scheme, including predicates for mutual induction when qualid is part of a mutually recursive definition.

8.5.6  discriminate term

This tactic proves any goal from an assumption stating that two structurally different terms of an inductive set are equal. For example, from (S (S O))=(S O) we can derive by absurdity any proposition.

The argument term is assumed to be a proof of a statement of conclusion term1 = term2 with term1 and term2 being elements of an inductive set. To build the proof, the tactic traverses the normal forms3 of term1 and term2 looking for a couple of subterms u and w (u subterm of the normal form of term1 and w subterm of the normal form of term2), placed at the same positions and whose head symbols are two different constructors. If such a couple of subterms exists, then the proof of the current goal is completed, otherwise the tactic fails.


Remark: The syntax discriminate ident can be used to refer to a hypothesis quantified in the goal. In this case, the quantified hypothesis whose name is ident is first introduced in the local context using intros until ident.


Error messages:

  1. No primitive equality found
  2. Not a discriminable equality


Variants:

  1. discriminate num

    This does the same thing as intros until num followed by discriminate ident where ident is the identifier for the last introduced hypothesis.

  2. discriminate term with bindings_list

    This does the same thing as discriminate term but using the given bindings to instantiate parameters or hypotheses of term.

  3. ediscriminate num
    ediscriminate term [with bindings_list]

    This works the same as discriminate but if the type of term, or the type of the hypothesis referred to by num, has uninstantiated parameters, these parameters are left as existential variables.

  4. discriminate

    This behaves like discriminate ident if ident is the name of an hypothesis to which discriminate is applicable; if the current goal is of the form term1 <> term2, this behaves as intro ident; discriminate ident.


    Error message: No discriminable equalities

8.5.7  injection term

The injection tactic is based on the fact that constructors of inductive sets are injections. That means that if c is a constructor of an inductive set, and if (c t1) and (c t2) are two terms that are equal then  t1 and  t2 are equal too.

If term is a proof of a statement of conclusion term1 = term2, then injection applies injectivity as deep as possible to derive the equality of all the subterms of term1 and term2 placed in the same positions. For example, from (S (S n))=(S (S (S m))) we may derive n=(S m). To use this tactic term1 and term2 should be elements of an inductive set and they should be neither explicitly equal, nor structurally different. We mean by this that, if n1 and n2 are their respective normal forms, then:

If these conditions are satisfied, then, the tactic derives the equality of all the subterms of term1 and term2 placed in the same positions and puts them as antecedents of the current goal.


Example: Consider the following goal:

Coq < Inductive list : Set :=
        | nil : list
        | cons : nat -> list -> list.

Coq < Variable P : list -> Prop.
Coq < Show.
1 subgoal
  
  l : list
  n : nat
  H : P nil
  H0 : cons n l = cons 0 nil
  ============================
  P l

Coq < injection H0.
1 subgoal
  
  l : list
  n : nat
  H : P nil
  H0 : cons n l = cons 0 nil
  ============================
  l = nil -> n = 0 -> P l

Beware that injection yields an equality in a sigma type whenever the injected object has a dependent type P with its two instances in different types (P t1 ... tn) and (P u1 ... un). If t1 and u1 are the same and have for type an inductive type for which a decidable equality has been declared using the command Scheme Equality (see 13.1), the use of a sigma type is avoided.


Remark: If some quantified hypothesis of the goal is named ident, then injection ident first introduces the hypothesis in the local context using intros until ident.


Error messages:

  1. Not a projectable equality but a discriminable one
  2. Nothing to do, it is an equality between convertible terms
  3. Not a primitive equality


Variants:

  1. injection num

    This does the same thing as intros until num followed by injection ident where ident is the identifier for the last introduced hypothesis.

  2. injection term with bindings_list

    This does the same as injection term but using the given bindings to instantiate parameters or hypotheses of term.

  3. einjection num
    einjection term [with bindings_list]

    This works the same as injection but if the type of term, or the type of the hypothesis referred to by num, has uninstantiated parameters, these parameters are left as existential variables.

  4. injection

    If the current goal is of the form term1 <> term2, this behaves as intro ident; injection ident.


    Error message: goal does not satisfy the expected preconditions

  5. injection term [with bindings_list] as intro_pattern … intro_pattern
    injection num as intro_pattern … intro_pattern
    injection as intro_pattern … intro_pattern
    einjection term [with bindings_list] as intro_pattern … intro_pattern
    einjection num as intro_pattern … intro_pattern
    einjection as intro_pattern … intro_pattern

    These variants apply intros intro_pattern … intro_pattern after the call to injection or einjection so that all equalities generated are moved in the context of hypotheses. The number of intro_pattern must not exceed the number of equalities newly generated. If it is smaller, fresh names are automatically generated to adjust the list of intro_pattern to the number of new equalities. The original equality is erased if it corresponds to an hypothesis.

8.5.8  inversion ident

Let the type of ident in the local context be (I t), where I is a (co)inductive predicate. Then, inversion applied to ident  derives for each possible constructor ci of (I t), all the necessary conditions that should hold for the instance (I t) to be proved by ci.


Remark: If ident does not denote a hypothesis in the local context but refers to a hypothesis quantified in the goal, then the latter is first introduced in the local context using intros until ident.


Remark: As inversion proofs may be large in size, we recommend the user to stock the lemmas whenever the same instance needs to be inverted several times. See Section 13.3.


Variants:

  1. inversion num

    This does the same thing as intros until num then inversion ident where ident is the identifier for the last introduced hypothesis.

  2. inversion_clear ident

    This behaves as inversion and then erases ident  from the context.

  3. inversion ident as intro_pattern

    This generally behaves as inversion but using names in intro_pattern for naming hypotheses. The intro_pattern must have the form [ p11 … p1n1 | … | pm1 … pmnm ] with m being the number of constructors of the type of ident. Be careful that the list must be of length m even if inversion discards some cases (which is precisely one of its roles): for the discarded cases, just use an empty list (i.e. ni=0).

    The arguments of the ith constructor and the equalities that inversion introduces in the context of the goal corresponding to the ith constructor, if it exists, get their names from the list pi1 …pini in order. If there are not enough names, inversion invents names for the remaining variables to introduce. In case an equation splits into several equations (because inversion applies injection on the equalities it generates), the corresponding name pij in the list must be replaced by a sublist of the form [pij1 … pijq] (or, equivalently, (pij1, …, pijq)) where q is the number of subequalities obtained from splitting the original equation. Here is an example.

    The inversion … as variant of inversion generally behaves in a slightly more expectable way than inversion (no artificial duplication of some hypotheses referring to other hypotheses) To take benefit of these improvements, it is enough to use inversion … as [], letting the names being finally chosen by Coq.

    Coq < Inductive contains0 : list nat -> Prop :=
            | in_hd : forall l, contains0 (0 :: l)
            | in_tl : forall l b, contains0 l -> contains0 (b :: l).
    contains0 is defined
    contains0_ind is defined

    Coq < Goal forall l:list nat, contains0 (1 :: l) -> contains0 l.
    1 subgoal
      
      ============================
      forall l : Datatypes.list nat, contains0 (1 :: l) -> contains0 l

    Coq < intros l H; inversion H as [ | l' p Hl' [Heqp Heql'] ].
    1 subgoal
      
      l : Datatypes.list nat
      H : contains0 (1 :: l)
      l' : Datatypes.list nat
      p : nat
      Hl' : contains0 l
      Heqp : p = 1
      Heql' : l' = l
      ============================
      contains0 l
  4. inversion num as intro_pattern

    This allows naming the hypotheses introduced by inversion num in the context.

  5. inversion_clear ident as intro_pattern

    This allows naming the hypotheses introduced by inversion_clear in the context. Notice that hypothesis names can be provided as if inversion were called, even though the inversion_clear will eventually erase the hypotheses.

  6. inversion ident in ident1 … identn

    Let ident1 … identn, be identifiers in the local context. This tactic behaves as generalizing ident1 … identn, and then performing inversion.

  7. inversion ident as intro_pattern in ident1 … identn

    This allows naming the hypotheses introduced in the context by inversion ident in ident1 … identn.

  8. inversion_clear ident in ident1 … identn

    Let ident1 … identn, be identifiers in the local context. This tactic behaves as generalizing ident1 … identn, and then performing inversion_clear.

  9. inversion_clear ident as intro_pattern in ident1 … identn

    This allows naming the hypotheses introduced in the context by inversion_clear ident in ident1 … identn.

  10. dependent inversion ident

    That must be used when ident appears in the current goal. It acts like inversion and then substitutes ident for the corresponding term in the goal.

  11. dependent inversion ident as intro_pattern

    This allows naming the hypotheses introduced in the context by dependent inversion ident.

  12. dependent inversion_clear ident

    Like dependent inversion, except that ident is cleared from the local context.

  13. dependent inversion_clear ident as intro_pattern

    This allows naming the hypotheses introduced in the context by dependent inversion_clear ident.

  14. dependent inversion ident with term

    This variant allows you to specify the generalization of the goal. It is useful when the system fails to generalize the goal automatically. If ident has type (I t) and I has type ∀ (x:T), s, then term  must be of type I:∀ (x:T), I x→ s′ where s′ is the type of the goal.

  15. dependent inversion ident as intro_pattern with term

    This allows naming the hypotheses introduced in the context by dependent inversion ident with term.

  16. dependent inversion_clear ident with term

    Like dependent inversion … with but clears ident from the local context.

  17. dependent inversion_clear ident as intro_pattern with term

    This allows naming the hypotheses introduced in the context by dependent inversion_clear ident with term.

  18. simple inversion ident

    It is a very primitive inversion tactic that derives all the necessary equalities but it does not simplify the constraints as inversion does.

  19. simple inversion ident as intro_pattern

    This allows naming the hypotheses introduced in the context by simple inversion.

  20. inversion ident using ident′

    Let ident have type (I t) (I an inductive predicate) in the local context, and ident′ be a (dependent) inversion lemma. Then, this tactic refines the current goal with the specified lemma.

  21. inversion ident using ident′ in ident1… identn

    This tactic behaves as generalizing ident1… identn, then doing inversion ident using ident′.


Example 1: Non-dependent inversion

Let us consider the relation Le over natural numbers and the following variables:

Coq < Inductive Le : nat -> nat -> Set :=
        | LeO : forall n:nat, Le 0 n
        | LeS : forall n m:nat, Le n m -> Le (S n) (S m).

Coq < Variable P : nat -> nat -> Prop.

Coq < Variable Q : forall n m:nat, Le n m -> Prop.

Let us consider the following goal:

Coq < Show.
1 subgoal
  
  n, m : nat
  H : Le (S n) m
  ============================
  P n m

To prove the goal, we may need to reason by cases on H and to derive that m is necessarily of the form (S m0) for certain m0 and that (Le n m0). Deriving these conditions corresponds to prove that the only possible constructor of (Le (S n) m) is LeS and that we can invert the -> in the type of LeS. This inversion is possible because Le is the smallest set closed by the constructors LeO and LeS.

Coq < inversion_clear H.
1 subgoal
  
  n, m, m0 : nat
  H0 : Le n m0
  ============================
  P n (S m0)

Note that m has been substituted in the goal for (S m0) and that the hypothesis (Le n m0) has been added to the context.

Sometimes it is interesting to have the equality m=(S m0) in the context to use it after. In that case we can use inversion that does not clear the equalities:

Coq < inversion H.
1 subgoal
  
  n, m : nat
  H : Le (S n) m
  n0, m0 : nat
  H1 : Le n m0
  H0 : n0 = n
  H2 : S m0 = m
  ============================
  P n (S m0)


Example 2: Dependent inversion

Let us consider the following goal:

Coq < Show.
1 subgoal
  
  n, m : nat
  H : Le (S n) m
  ============================
  Q (S n) m H

As H occurs in the goal, we may want to reason by cases on its structure and so, we would like inversion tactics to substitute H by the corresponding term in constructor form. Neither Inversion nor Inversion_clear make such a substitution. To have such a behavior we use the dependent inversion tactics:

Coq < dependent inversion_clear H.
1 subgoal
  
  n, m, m0 : nat
  l : Le n m0
  ============================
  Q (S n) (S m0) (LeS n m0 l)

Note that H has been substituted by (LeS n m0 l) and m by (S m0).

8.5.9  fix ident num

This tactic is a primitive tactic to start a proof by induction. In general, it is easier to rely on higher-level induction tactics such as the ones described in Section 8.5.2.

In the syntax of the tactic, the identifier ident is the name given to the induction hypothesis. The natural number num tells on which premise of the current goal the induction acts, starting from 1 and counting both dependent and non dependent products. Especially, the current lemma must be composed of at least num products.

Like in a fix expression, the induction hypotheses have to be used on structurally smaller arguments. The verification that inductive proof arguments are correct is done only at the time of registering the lemma in the environment. To know if the use of induction hypotheses is correct at some time of the interactive development of a proof, use the command Guarded (see Section 7.3.2).


Variants:

  1. fix ident1 num with ( ident2 binder2 … binder2 [{ struct ident′2 }] : type2 ) … ( identn bindern … bindern [{ struct ident′n }] : typen )

    This starts a proof by mutual induction. The statements to be simultaneously proved are respectively forall binder2 … binder2, type2, …, forall bindern … bindern, typen. The identifiers ident1 … identn are the names of the induction hypotheses. The identifiers ident′2 … ident′n are the respective names of the premises on which the induction is performed in the statements to be simultaneously proved (if not given, the system tries to guess itself what they are).

8.5.10  cofix ident

This tactic starts a proof by coinduction. The identifier ident is the name given to the coinduction hypothesis. Like in a cofix expression, the use of induction hypotheses have to guarded by a constructor. The verification that the use of co-inductive hypotheses is correct is done only at the time of registering the lemma in the environment. To know if the use of coinduction hypotheses is correct at some time of the interactive development of a proof, use the command Guarded (see Section 7.3.2).


Variants:

  1. cofix ident1 with ( ident2 binder2 … binder2 : type2 ) … ( identn bindern … bindern : typen )

    This starts a proof by mutual coinduction. The statements to be simultaneously proved are respectively forall binder2 … binder2, type2, …, forall bindern … bindern, typen. The identifiers ident1 … identn are the names of the coinduction hypotheses.

8.6  Rewriting expressions

These tactics use the equality eq:forall A:Type, A->A->Prop defined in file Logic.v (see Section 3.1.2). The notation for eq T t u is simply t=u dropping the implicit type of t and u.

8.6.1  rewrite term

This tactic applies to any goal. The type of term must have the form

forall (x1:A1) … (xn:An)eq term1 term2.

where eq is the Leibniz equality or a registered setoid equality.

Then rewrite term finds the first subterm matching term1 in the goal, resulting in instances term1′ and term2′ and then replaces every occurrence of term1′ by term2′. Hence, some of the variables xi are solved by unification, and some of the types A1, …, An become new subgoals.


Error messages:

  1. The term provided does not end with an equation
  2. Tactic generated a subgoal identical to the original goal

    This happens if term1 does not occur in the goal.


Variants:

  1. rewrite -> term

    Is equivalent to rewrite term

  2. rewrite <- term

    Uses the equality term1=term2 from right to left

  3. rewrite term in clause

    Analogous to rewrite term but rewriting is done following clause (similarly to 8.7). For instance:

    • rewrite H in H1 will rewrite H in the hypothesis H1 instead of the current goal.
    • rewrite H in H1 at 1, H2 at - 2 |- * means rewrite H; rewrite H in H1 at 1; rewrite H in H2 at - 2. In particular a failure will happen if any of these three simpler tactics fails.
    • rewrite H in * |- will do rewrite H in Hi for all hypothesis Hi <> H. A success will happen as soon as at least one of these simpler tactics succeeds.
    • rewrite H in * is a combination of rewrite H and rewrite H in * |- that succeeds if at least one of these two tactics succeeds.

    Orientation -> or <- can be inserted before the term to rewrite.

  4. rewrite term at occurrences

    Rewrite only the given occurrences of term1′. Occurrences are specified from left to right as for pattern (§8.7.7). The rewrite is always performed using setoid rewriting, even for Leibniz’s equality, so one has to Import Setoid to use this variant.

  5. rewrite term by tactic

    Use tactic to completely solve the side-conditions arising from the rewrite.

  6. rewrite term1 , … , termn

    Is equivalent to the n successive tactics rewrite term1 up to rewrite termn, each one working on the first subgoal generated by the previous one. Orientation -> or <- can be inserted before each term to rewrite. One unique clause can be added at the end after the keyword in; it will then affect all rewrite operations.

  7. In all forms of rewrite described above, a term to rewrite can be immediately prefixed by one of the following modifiers:
    • ? : the tactic rewrite ?term performs the rewrite of term as many times as possible (perhaps zero time). This form never fails.
    • n? : works similarly, except that it will do at most n rewrites.
    • ! : works as ?, except that at least one rewrite should succeed, otherwise the tactic fails.
    • n! (or simply n) : precisely n rewrites of term will be done, leading to failure if these n rewrites are not possible.
  8. erewrite term

    This tactic works as rewrite term but turning unresolved bindings into existential variables, if any, instead of failing. It has the same variants as rewrite has.

8.6.2  replace term1 with term2

This tactic applies to any goal. It replaces all free occurrences of term1 in the current goal with term2 and generates the equality term2=term1 as a subgoal. This equality is automatically solved if it occurs among the assumption, or if its symmetric form occurs. It is equivalent to cut term2=term1; [intro Hn; rewrite <- Hn; clear Hn| assumption || symmetry; try assumption].


Error messages:

  1. terms do not have convertible types


Variants:

  1. replace term1 with term2 by tactic

    This acts as replace term1 with term2 but applies tactic to solve the generated subgoal term2=term1.

  2. replace term

    Replaces term with term’ using the first assumption whose type has the form term=term’ or term’=term.

  3. replace -> term

    Replaces term with term’ using the first assumption whose type has the form term=term’

  4. replace <- term

    Replaces term with term’ using the first assumption whose type has the form term’=term

  5. replace term1 with term2 in clause
    replace term1 with term2 in clause by tactic
    replace term in clause
    replace -> term in clause
    replace <- term in clause

    Acts as before but the replacements take place in clause (see Section 8.7) and not only in the conclusion of the goal. The clause argument must not contain any type of nor value of.

  6. cutrewrite <- (term1 = term2)

    This tactic is deprecated. It acts like replace term2 with term1, or, equivalently as enough (term1 = term2) as <-.

  7. cutrewrite -> (term1 = term2)

    This tactic is deprecated. It can be replaced by enough (term1 = term2) as ->.

8.6.3  subst ident

This tactic applies to a goal that has ident in its context and (at least) one hypothesis, say H, of type ident = t or t = ident with ident not occurring in t. Then it replaces ident by t everywhere in the goal (in the hypotheses and in the conclusion) and clears ident and H from the context.

If ident is a local definition of the form ident := t, it is also unfolded and cleared.


Remark: When several hypotheses have the form ident = t or t = ident, the first one is used.


Remark: If H is itself dependent in the goal, it is replaced by the proof of reflexivity of equality.


Variants:

  1. subst ident1 … identn

    This is equivalent to subst ident1; …; subst identn.

  2. subst

    This applies subst repeatedly from top to bottom to all identifiers of the context for which an equality of the form ident = t or t = ident or ident := t exists, with ident not occurring in t.

    Remark: The behavior of subst can be controlled using option Set Regular Subst Tactic. When this option is activated, subst also deals with the following corner cases:

    • A context with ordered hypotheses ident1 = ident2 and ident1 = t, or t′ = ident1 with t′ not a variable, and no other hypotheses of the form ident2 = u or u = ident2; without the option, a second call to subst would be necessary to replace ident2 by t or t′ respectively.
    • A context with cyclic dependencies as with hypotheses ident1 = f ident2 and ident2 = g ident1 which without the option would be a cause of failure of subst.

    Additionally, it prevents a local definition such as ident := t to be unfolded which otherwise it would exceptionally unfold in configurations containing hypotheses of the form ident = u, or u′ = ident with u′ not a variable.

    Finally, it preserves the initial order of hypotheses, which without the option it may break.

    The option is off by default.

8.6.4  stepl term

This tactic is for chaining rewriting steps. It assumes a goal of the form “R term1 term2” where R is a binary relation and relies on a database of lemmas of the form forall x y z, R x y -> eq x z -> R z y where eq is typically a setoid equality. The application of stepl term then replaces the goal by “R term term2” and adds a new goal stating “eq term term1”.

Lemmas are added to the database using the command

Declare Left Step term.

The tactic is especially useful for parametric setoids which are not accepted as regular setoids for rewrite and setoid_replace (see Chapter 27).


Variants:

  1. stepl term by tactic

    This applies stepl term then applies tactic to the second goal.

  2. stepr term
    stepr term by tactic

    This behaves as stepl but on the right-hand-side of the binary relation. Lemmas are expected to be of the form “forall x y z, R x y -> eq y z -> R x z” and are registered using the command

    Declare Right Step term.

8.6.5  change term

This tactic applies to any goal. It implements the rule “Conv” given in Section 4.4. change U replaces the current goal T with U providing that U is well-formed and that T and U are convertible.


Error messages:

  1. Not convertible


Variants:

  1. change term1 with term2

    This replaces the occurrences of term1 by term2 in the current goal. The terms term1 and term2 must be convertible.

  2. change term1 at num1 … numi with term2

    This replaces the occurrences numbered num1 … numi of term1 by term2 in the current goal. The terms term1 and term2 must be convertible.


    Error message: Too few occurrences

  3. change term in ident
  4. change term1 with term2 in ident
  5. change term1 at num1 … numi with term2 in ident

    This applies the change tactic not to the goal but to the hypothesis ident.


See also: 8.7

8.7  Performing computations

This set of tactics implements different specialized usages of the tactic change.

All conversion tactics (including change) can be parameterized by the parts of the goal where the conversion can occur. This is done using goal clauses which consists in a list of hypotheses and, optionally, of a reference to the conclusion of the goal. For defined hypothesis it is possible to specify if the conversion should occur on the type part, the body part or both (default).

Goal clauses are written after a conversion tactic (tactics set 8.3.7, rewrite 8.6.1, replace 8.6.2 and autorewrite 8.8.4 also use goal clauses) and are introduced by the keyword in. If no goal clause is provided, the default is to perform the conversion only in the conclusion.

The syntax and description of the various goal clauses is the following:

in ident1 … identn |- only in hypotheses ident1 …identn
in ident1 … identn |- * in hypotheses ident1 …identn and in the conclusion
in * |- in every hypothesis
in * (equivalent to in * |- *) everywhere
in (type of ident1) (value of ident2) … |- in type part of ident1, in the value part of ident2, etc.

For backward compatibility, the notation in ident1…identn performs the conversion in hypotheses ident1…identn.

8.7.1  cbv flag1 … flagn, lazy flag1 … flagn, and compute

These parameterized reduction tactics apply to any goal and perform the normalization of the goal according to the specified flags. In correspondence with the kinds of reduction considered in Coq  namely β (reduction of functional application), δ (unfolding of transparent constants, see 6.10.2), ι (reduction of pattern-matching over a constructed term, and unfolding of fix and cofix expressions) and ζ (contraction of local definitions), the flag are either beta, delta, iota or zeta. The delta flag itself can be refined into delta [qualid1…qualidk] or delta -[qualid1…qualidk], restricting in the first case the constants to unfold to the constants listed, and restricting in the second case the constant to unfold to all but the ones explicitly mentioned. Notice that the delta flag does not apply to variables bound by a let-in construction inside the term itself (use here the zeta flag). In any cases, opaque constants are not unfolded (see Section 6.10.1).

Normalization according to the flags is done by first evaluating the head of the expression into a weak-head normal form, i.e. until the evaluation is bloked by a variable (or an opaque constant, or an axiom), as e.g. in x u1 ... un, or match x with ... end, or (fix f x {struct x} := ...) x, or is a constructed form (a λ-expression, a constructor, a cofixpoint, an inductive type, a product type, a sort), or is a redex that the flags prevent to reduce. Once a weak-head normal form is obtained, subterms are recursively reduced using the same strategy.

Reduction to weak-head normal form can be done using two strategies: lazy (lazy tactic), or call-by-value (cbv tactic). The lazy strategy is a call-by-need strategy, with sharing of reductions: the arguments of a function call are weakly evaluated only when necessary, and if an argument is used several times then it is weakly computed only once. This reduction is efficient for reducing expressions with dead code. For instance, the proofs of a proposition exists x. P(x) reduce to a pair of a witness t, and a proof that t satisfies the predicate P. Most of the time, t may be computed without computing the proof of P(t), thanks to the lazy strategy.

The call-by-value strategy is the one used in ML languages: the arguments of a function call are systematically weakly evaluated first. Despite the lazy strategy always performs fewer reductions than the call-by-value strategy, the latter is generally more efficient for evaluating purely computational expressions (i.e. with few dead code).


Variants:

  1. compute
    cbv

    These are synonyms for cbv beta delta iota zeta.

  2. lazy

    This is a synonym for lazy beta delta iota zeta.

  3. compute [qualid1…qualidk]
    cbv [qualid1…qualidk]

    These are synonyms of cbv beta delta [qualid1…qualidk] iota zeta.

  4. compute -[qualid1…qualidk]
    cbv -[qualid1…qualidk]

    These are synonyms of cbv beta delta -[qualid1…qualidk] iota zeta.

  5. lazy [qualid1…qualidk]
    lazy -[qualid1…qualidk]

    These are respectively synonyms of lazy beta delta [qualid1…qualidk] iota zeta and lazy beta delta -[qualid1…qualidk] iota zeta.

  6. vm_compute

    This tactic evaluates the goal using the optimized call-by-value evaluation bytecode-based virtual machine described in [77]. This algorithm is dramatically more efficient than the algorithm used for the cbv tactic, but it cannot be fine-tuned. It is specially interesting for full evaluation of algebraic objects. This includes the case of reflection-based tactics.

  7. native_compute

    This tactic evaluates the goal by compilation to Objective Caml as described in [16]. If Coq is running in native code, it can be typically two to five times faster than vm_compute. Note however that the compilation cost is higher, so it is worth using only for intensive computations.

8.7.2  red

This tactic applies to a goal that has the form forall (x:T1)…(xk:Tk), t with t βιζ-reducing to c t1 … tn and c a constant. If c is transparent then it replaces c with its definition (say t) and then reduces (t t1 … tn) according to βιζ-reduction rules.


Error messages:

  1. Not reducible

8.7.3  hnf

This tactic applies to any goal. It replaces the current goal with its head normal form according to the βδιζ-reduction rules, i.e. it reduces the head of the goal until it becomes a product or an irreducible term. All inner βι-redexes are also reduced.


Example: The term forall n:nat, (plus (S n) (S n)) is not reduced by hnf.


Remark: The δ rule only applies to transparent constants (see Section 6.10.1 on transparency and opacity).

8.7.4  cbn and simpl

These tactics apply to any goal. They try to reduce a term to something still readable instead of fully normalizing it. They perform a sort of strong normalization with two key differences:

The cbn tactic is claimed to be a more principled, faster and more predictable replacement for simpl.

The cbn tactic accepts the same flags as cbv and lazy. The behavior of both simpl and cbn can be tuned using the Arguments vernacular command as follows:

In detail, the tactic simpl first applies βι-reduction. Then, it expands transparent constants and tries to reduce further using βι-reduction. But, when no ι rule is applied after unfolding then δ-reductions are not applied. For instance trying to use simpl on (plus n O)=n changes nothing.

Notice that only transparent constants whose name can be reused in the recursive calls are possibly unfolded by simpl. For instance a constant defined by plus’ := plus is possibly unfolded and reused in the recursive calls, but a constant such as succ := plus (S O) is never unfolded. This is the main difference between simpl and cbn. The tactic cbn reduces whenever it will be able to reuse it or not: succ t is reduced to S t.


Variants:

  1. cbn [qualid1…qualidk]
    cbn -[qualid1…qualidk]

    These are respectively synonyms of cbn beta delta [qualid1…qualidk] iota zeta and cbn beta delta -[qualid1…qualidk] iota zeta (see 8.7.1).

  2. simpl pattern

    This applies simpl only to the subterms matching pattern in the current goal.

  3. simpl pattern at num1 … numi

    This applies simpl only to the num1, …, numi occurrences of the subterms matching pattern in the current goal.


    Error message: Too few occurrences

  4. simpl qualid
    simpl string

    This applies simpl only to the applicative subterms whose head occurrence is the unfoldable constant qualid (the constant can be referred to by its notation using string if such a notation exists).

  5. simpl qualid at num1 … numi
    simpl string at num1 … numi
    This applies simpl only to the num1, …, numi applicative subterms whose head occurrence is qualid (or string).

8.7.5  unfold qualid

This tactic applies to any goal. The argument qualid must denote a defined transparent constant or local definition (see Sections 1.3.2 and 6.10.2). The tactic unfold applies the δ rule to each occurrence of the constant to which qualid refers in the current goal and then replaces it with its βι-normal form.


Error messages:

  1. qualid does not denote an evaluable constant


Variants:

  1. unfold qualid1, …, qualidn

    Replaces simultaneously qualid1, …, qualidn with their definitions and replaces the current goal with its βι normal form.

  2. unfold qualid1 at num11, …, numi1, …, qualidn at num1n … numjn

    The lists num11, …, numi1 and num1n, …, numjn specify the occurrences of qualid1, …, qualidn to be unfolded. Occurrences are located from left to right.


    Error message: bad occurrence number of qualidi


    Error message: qualidi does not occur

  3. unfold string

    If string denotes the discriminating symbol of a notation (e.g. "+") or an expression defining a notation (e.g. "_ + _"), and this notation refers to an unfoldable constant, then the tactic unfolds it.

  4. unfold string%key

    This is variant of unfold string where string gets its interpretation from the scope bound to the delimiting key key instead of its default interpretation (see Section 12.2.2).

  5. unfold qualid_or_string1 at num11, …, numi1, …, qualid_or_stringn at num1n … numjn

    This is the most general form, where qualid_or_string is either a qualid or a string referring to a notation.

8.7.6  fold term

This tactic applies to any goal. The term term is reduced using the red tactic. Every occurrence of the resulting term in the goal is then replaced by term.


Variants:

  1. fold term1 … termn

    Equivalent to fold term1;…; fold termn.

8.7.7  pattern term

This command applies to any goal. The argument term must be a free subterm of the current goal. The command pattern performs β-expansion (the inverse of β-reduction) of the current goal (say T) by

  1. replacing all occurrences of term in T with a fresh variable
  2. abstracting this variable
  3. applying the abstracted goal to term

For instance, if the current goal T is expressible has φ(t) where the notation captures all the instances of t in φ(t), then pattern t transforms it into (fun x:A => φ(x)) t. This command can be used, for instance, when the tactic apply fails on matching.


Variants:

  1. pattern term at num1 … numn

    Only the occurrences num1 … numn of term are considered for β-expansion. Occurrences are located from left to right.

  2. pattern term at - num1 … numn

    All occurrences except the occurrences of indexes num1 … numn of term are considered for β-expansion. Occurrences are located from left to right.

  3. pattern term1, …, termm

    Starting from a goal φ(t1 … tm), the tactic pattern t1, …, tm generates the equivalent goal (fun (x1:A1) … (xm:Am) => φ(x1… xm)) t1 … tm. If ti occurs in one of the generated types Aj these occurrences will also be considered and possibly abstracted.

  4. pattern term1 at num11 … numn11, …, termm at num1m … numnmm

    This behaves as above but processing only the occurrences num11, …, numi1 of term1, …, num1m, …, numjm of termm starting from termm.

  5. pattern term1 [at [-] num11 … numn11] , …, termm [at [-] num1m … numnmm]

    This is the most general syntax that combines the different variants.

8.7.8  Conversion tactics applied to hypotheses

conv_tactic in ident1 … identn

Applies the conversion tactic conv_tactic to the hypotheses ident1, …, identn. The tactic conv_tactic is any of the conversion tactics listed in this section.

If identi is a local definition, then identi can be replaced by (Type of identi) to address not the body but the type of the local definition. Example: unfold not in (Type of H1) (Type of H3).


Error messages:

  1. No such hypothesis : ident.

8.8  Automation

8.8.1  auto

This tactic implements a Prolog-like resolution procedure to solve the current goal. It first tries to solve the goal using the assumption tactic, then it reduces the goal to an atomic one using intros and introduces the newly generated hypotheses as hints. Then it looks at the list of tactics associated to the head symbol of the goal and tries to apply one of them (starting from the tactics with lower cost). This process is recursively applied to the generated subgoals.

By default, auto only uses the hypotheses of the current goal and the hints of the database named core.


Variants:

  1. auto num

    Forces the search depth to be num. The maximal search depth is 5 by default.

  2. auto with ident1 … identn

    Uses the hint databases ident1 … identn in addition to the database core. See Section 8.9.1 for the list of pre-defined databases and the way to create or extend a database.

  3. auto with *

    Uses all existing hint databases, minus the special database v62. See Section 8.9.1

  4. auto using lemma1 , … , lemman

    Uses lemma1, …, lemman in addition to hints (can be combined with the with ident option). If lemmai is an inductive type, it is the collection of its constructors which is added as hints.

  5. info_auto

    Behaves like auto but shows the tactics it uses to solve the goal. This variant is very useful for getting a better understanding of automation, or to know what lemmas/assumptions were used.

  6. [info_]auto [num] [using lemma1 , … , lemman] [with ident1 … identn]

    This is the most general form, combining the various options.

  7. trivial

    This tactic is a restriction of auto that is not recursive and tries only hints that cost 0. Typically it solves trivial equalities like X=X.

  8. trivial with ident1 … identn
  9. trivial with *
  10. trivial using lemma1 , … , lemman
  11. info_trivial
  12. [info_]trivial [using lemma1 , … , lemman] [with ident1 … identn]


Remark: auto either solves completely the goal or else leaves it intact. auto and trivial never fail.


See also: Section 8.9.1

8.8.2  eauto

This tactic generalizes auto. While auto does not try resolution hints which would leave existential variables in the goal, eauto does try them (informally speaking, it uses simple eapply where auto uses simple apply). As a consequence, eauto can solve such a goal:

Coq < Hint Resolve ex_intro.
Warning: the hint: eapply ex_intro will only be used by eauto

Coq < Goal forall P:nat -> Prop, P 0 ->  exists n, P n.
1 subgoal
  
  ============================
  forall P : nat -> Prop, P 0 -> exists n : nat, P n

Coq < eauto.
No more subgoals.

Note that ex_intro should be declared as a hint.


Variants:

  1. [info_]eauto [num] [using lemma1 , … , lemman] [with ident1 … identn]

    The various options for eauto are the same as for auto.


See also: Section 8.9.1

8.8.3  autounfold with ident1 … identn

This tactic unfolds constants that were declared through a Hint Unfold in the given databases.


Variants:

  1. autounfold with ident1 … identn in clause

    Performs the unfolding in the given clause.

  2. autounfold with *

    Uses the unfold hints declared in all the hint databases.

8.8.4  autorewrite with ident1 … identn

This tactic 4 carries out rewritings according the rewriting rule bases ident1 …identn.

Each rewriting rule of a base identi is applied to the main subgoal until it fails. Once all the rules have been processed, if the main subgoal has progressed (e.g., if it is distinct from the initial main goal) then the rules of this base are processed again. If the main subgoal has not progressed then the next base is processed. For the bases, the behavior is exactly similar to the processing of the rewriting rules.

The rewriting rule bases are built with the Hint Rewrite vernacular command.


Warning: This tactic may loop if you build non terminating rewriting systems.


Variant:

  1. autorewrite with ident1 … identn using tactic

    Performs, in the same way, all the rewritings of the bases ident1 … identn applying tactic to the main subgoal after each rewriting step.

  2. autorewrite with ident1 … identn in qualid

    Performs all the rewritings in hypothesis qualid.

  3. autorewrite with ident1 … identn in qualid using tactic

    Performs all the rewritings in hypothesis qualid applying tactic to the main subgoal after each rewriting step.

  4. autorewrite with ident1 … identn in clause

    Performs all the rewriting in the clause clause. The clause argument must not contain any type of nor value of.


See also: Section 8.9.5 for feeding the database of lemmas used by autorewrite.


See also: Section 10.2 for examples showing the use of this tactic.

8.9  Controlling automation

8.9.1  The hints databases for auto and eauto

The hints for auto and eauto are stored in databases. Each database maps head symbols to a list of hints. One can use the command Print Hint ident to display the hints associated to the head symbol ident (see 8.9.4). Each hint has a cost that is a nonnegative integer, and an optional pattern. The hints with lower cost are tried first. A hint is tried by auto when the conclusion of the current goal matches its pattern or when it has no pattern.

Creating Hint databases

One can optionally declare a hint database using the command Create HintDb. If a hint is added to an unknown database, it will be automatically created.


Create HintDb ident [discriminated]

This command creates a new database named ident. The database is implemented by a Discrimination Tree (DT) that serves as an index of all the lemmas. The DT can use transparency information to decide if a constant should be indexed or not (c.f. 8.9.1), making the retrieval more efficient. The legacy implementation (the default one for new databases) uses the DT only on goals without existentials (i.e., auto goals), for non-Immediate hints and do not make use of transparency hints, putting more work on the unification that is run after retrieval (it keeps a list of the lemmas in case the DT is not used). The new implementation enabled by the discriminated option makes use of DTs in all cases and takes transparency information into account. However, the order in which hints are retrieved from the DT may differ from the order in which they were inserted, making this implementation observationally different from the legacy one.

The general command to add a hint to some databases ident1, …, identn is

Hint hint_definition : ident1 … identn


Variants:

  1. Hint hint_definition

    No database name is given: the hint is registered in the core database.

  2. Local Hint hint_definition : ident1 … identn

    This is used to declare hints that must not be exported to the other modules that require and import the current module. Inside a section, the option Local is useless since hints do not survive anyway to the closure of sections.

  3. Local Hint hint_definition

    Idem for the core database.

The hint_definition is one of the following expressions:


Remark: One can use an Extern hint with no pattern to do pattern-matching on hypotheses using match goal with inside the tactic.

8.9.2  Hint databases defined in the Coq standard library

Several hint databases are defined in the Coq standard library. The actual content of a database is the collection of the hints declared to belong to this database in each of the various modules currently loaded. Especially, requiring new modules potentially extend a database. At Coq startup, only the core and v62 databases are non empty and can be used.

core
This special database is automatically used by auto, except when pseudo-database nocore is given to auto. The core database contains only basic lemmas about negation, conjunction, and so on from. Most of the hints in this database come from the Init and Logic directories.
arith
This database contains all lemmas about Peano’s arithmetic proved in the directories Init and Arith
zarith
contains lemmas about binary signed integers from the directories theories/ZArith. When required, the module Omega also extends the database zarith with a high-cost hint that calls omega on equations and inequalities in nat or Z.
bool
contains lemmas about booleans, mostly from directory theories/Bool.
datatypes
is for lemmas about lists, streams and so on that are mainly proved in the Lists subdirectory.
sets
contains lemmas about sets and relations from the directories Sets and Relations.
typeclass_instances
contains all the type class instances declared in the environment, including those used for setoid_rewrite, from the Classes directory.

There is also a special database called v62. It collects all hints that were declared in the versions of Coq prior to version 6.2.4 when the databases core, arith, and so on were introduced. The purpose of the database v62 is to ensure compatibility with further versions of Coq for developments done in versions prior to 6.2.4 (auto being replaced by auto with v62). The database v62 is intended not to be extended (!). It is not included in the hint databases list used in the auto with * tactic.

Furthermore, you are advised not to put your own hints in the core database, but use one or several databases specific to your development.

8.9.3  Remove Hints term1 … termn :  ident1 … identm

This command removes the hints associated to terms term1 … termn in databases ident1 … identm.

8.9.4  Print Hint

This command displays all hints that apply to the current goal. It fails if no proof is being edited, while the two variants can be used at every moment.


Variants:

  1. Print Hint ident

    This command displays only tactics associated with ident in the hints list. This is independent of the goal being edited, so this command will not fail if no goal is being edited.

  2. Print Hint *

    This command displays all declared hints.

  3. Print HintDb ident

    This command displays all hints from database ident.

8.9.5  Hint Rewrite term1 … termn :  ident1 … identm

This vernacular command adds the terms term1 … termn (their types must be equalities) in the rewriting bases ident1, …, identm with the default orientation (left to right). Notice that the rewriting bases are distinct from the auto hint bases and that auto does not take them into account.

This command is synchronous with the section mechanism (see 2.4): when closing a section, all aliases created by Hint Rewrite in that section are lost. Conversely, when loading a module, all Hint Rewrite declarations at the global level of that module are loaded.


Variants:

  1. Hint Rewrite -> term1 … termn : ident1 … identm

    This is strictly equivalent to the command above (we only make explicit the orientation which otherwise defaults to ->).

  2. Hint Rewrite <- term1 … termn : ident1 … identm

    Adds the rewriting rules term1 … termn with a right-to-left orientation in the bases ident1, …, identm.

  3. Hint Rewrite term1 … termn using tactic : ident1 … identm

    When the rewriting rules term1 … termn in ident1, …, identm will be used, the tactic tactic will be applied to the generated subgoals, the main subgoal excluded.

  4. Print Rewrite HintDb ident

    This command displays all rewrite hints contained in ident.

8.9.6  Hint locality

Hints provided by the Hint commands are erased when closing a section. Conversely, all hints of a module A that are not defined inside a section (and not defined with option Local) become available when the module A is imported (using e.g. Require Import A.).

As of today, hints only have a binary behavior regarding locality, as described above: either they disappear at the end of a section scope, or they remain global forever. This causes a scalability issue, because hints coming from an unrelated part of the code may badly influence another development. It can be mitigated to some extent thanks to the Remove Hints command (see  8.9.3), but this is a mere workaround and has some limitations (for instance, external hints cannot be removed).

A proper way to fix this issue is to bind the hints to their module scope, as for most of the other objects Coq uses. Hints should only made available when the module they are defined in is imported, not just required. It is very difficult to change the historical behavior, as it would break a lot of scripts. We propose a smooth transitional path by providing the Loose Hint Behavior option which accepts three flags allowing for a fine-grained handling of non-imported hints.


Variants:

  1. Set Loose Hint Behavior "Lax"

    This is the default, and corresponds to the historical behavior, that is, hints defined outside of a section have a global scope.

  2. Set Loose Hint Behavior "Warn"

    When set, it outputs a warning when a non-imported hint is used. Note that this is an over-approximation, because a hint may be triggered by a run that will eventually fail and backtrack, resulting in the hint not being actually useful for the proof.

  3. Set Loose Hint Behavior "Strict"

    When set, it changes the behavior of an unloaded hint to a immediate fail tactic, allowing to emulate an import-scoped hint mechanism.

8.9.7  Setting implicit automation tactics

Proof with tactic

This command may be used to start a proof. It defines a default tactic to be used each time a tactic command tactic1 is ended by “...”. In this case the tactic command typed by the user is equivalent to tactic1;tactic.


See also: Proof. in Section 7.1.4.


Variants:

  1. Proof with tactic using ident1 … identn

    Combines in a single line Proof with and Proof using, see 7.1.5

  2. Proof using ident1 … identn with tactic

    Combines in a single line Proof with and Proof using, see 7.1.5

Declare Implicit Tactic tactic

This command declares a tactic to be used to solve implicit arguments that Coq does not know how to solve by unification. It is used every time the term argument of a tactic has one of its holes not fully resolved.

Here is an example:

Coq < Parameter quo : nat -> forall n:nat, n<>0 -> nat.
quo is assumed

Coq < Notation "x // y" := (quo x y _) (at level 40).

Coq < Declare Implicit Tactic assumption.

Coq < Goal forall n m, m<>0 -> { q:nat & { r | q * m + r = n } }.
1 subgoal
  
  ============================
  forall n m : nat, m <> 0 -> {q : nat & {r : nat | q * m + r = n}}

Coq < intros.
1 subgoal
  
  n, m : nat
  H : m <> 0
  ============================
  {q : nat & {r : nat | q * m + r = n}}

Coq < exists (n // m).
1 subgoal
  
  n, m : nat
  H : m <> 0
  ============================
  {r : nat | n // m * m + r = n}

The tactic exists (n // m) did not fail. The hole was solved by assumption so that it behaved as exists (quo n m H).

8.10  Decision procedures

8.10.1  tauto

This tactic implements a decision procedure for intuitionistic propositional calculus based on the contraction-free sequent calculi LJT* of Roy Dyckhoff [56]. Note that tauto succeeds on any instance of an intuitionistic tautological proposition. tauto unfolds negations and logical equivalence but does not unfold any other definition.

The following goal can be proved by tauto whereas auto would fail:

Coq < Goal forall (x:nat) (P:nat -> Prop), x = 0 \/ P x -> x <> 0 -> P x.
1 subgoal
  
  ============================
  forall (x : nat) (P : nat -> Prop), x = 0 \/ P x -> x <> 0 -> P x

Coq <   intros.
1 subgoal
  
  x : nat
  P : nat -> Prop
  H : x = 0 \/ P x
  H0 : x <> 0
  ============================
  P x

Coq <   tauto.
No more subgoals.

Moreover, if it has nothing else to do, tauto performs introductions. Therefore, the use of intros in the previous proof is unnecessary. tauto can for instance prove the following:

Coq < (* auto would fail *)
      Goal forall (A:Prop) (P:nat -> Prop),
          A \/ (forall x:nat, ~ A -> P x) -> forall x:nat, ~ A -> P x.
1 subgoal
  
  ============================
  forall (A : Prop) (P : nat -> Prop),
  A \/ (forall x : nat, ~ A -> P x) -> forall x : nat, ~ A -> P x

Coq <   tauto.
No more subgoals.


Remark: In contrast, tauto cannot solve the following goal

Coq < Goal forall (A:Prop) (P:nat -> Prop),
          A \/ (forall x:nat, ~ A -> P x) -> forall x:nat, ~ ~ (A \/ P x).

because (forall x:nat, ~ A -> P x) cannot be treated as atomic and an instantiation of x is necessary.


Variants:

  1. dtauto

    While tauto recognizes inductively defined connectives isomorphic to the standard connective and, prod, or, sum, False, Empty_set, unit, True, dtauto recognizes also all inductive types with one constructors and no indices, i.e. record-style connectives.

8.10.2  intuition tactic

The tactic intuition takes advantage of the search-tree built by the decision procedure involved in the tactic tauto. It uses this information to generate a set of subgoals equivalent to the original one (but simpler than it) and applies the tactic tactic to them [113]. If this tactic fails on some goals then intuition fails. In fact, tauto is simply intuition fail.

For instance, the tactic intuition auto applied to the goal 

(forall (x:nat), P x)/\B -> (forall (y:nat),P y)/\ P O \/B/\ P O

internally replaces it by the equivalent one: 

(forall (x:nat), P x), B |- P O

and then uses auto which completes the proof.

Originally due to César Muñoz, these tactics (tauto and intuition) have been completely re-engineered by David Delahaye using mainly the tactic language (see Chapter 9). The code is now much shorter and a significant increase in performance has been noticed. The general behavior with respect to dependent types, unfolding and introductions has slightly changed to get clearer semantics. This may lead to some incompatibilities.


Variants:

  1. intuition

    Is equivalent to intuition auto with *.

  2. dintuition

    While intuition recognizes inductively defined connectives isomorphic to the standard connective and, prod, or, sum, False, Empty_set, unit, True, dintuition recognizes also all inductive types with one constructors and no indices, i.e. record-style connectives.

Some aspects of the tactic intuition can be controlled using options. To avoid that inner negations which do not need to be unfolded are unfolded, use:

Unset Intuition Negation Unfolding

To do that all negations of the goal are unfolded even inner ones (this is the default), use:

Set Intuition Negation Unfolding

To avoid that inner occurrence of iff which do not need to be unfolded are unfolded (this is the default), use:

Unset Intuition Iff Unfolding

To do that all negations of the goal are unfolded even inner ones (this is the default), use:

Set Intuition Iff Unfolding

8.10.3  rtauto

The rtauto tactic solves propositional tautologies similarly to what tauto does. The main difference is that the proof term is built using a reflection scheme applied to a sequent calculus proof of the goal. The search procedure is also implemented using a different technique.

Users should be aware that this difference may result in faster proof-search but slower proof-checking, and rtauto might not solve goals that tauto would be able to solve (e.g. goals involving universal quantifiers).

8.10.4  firstorder

The tactic firstorder is an experimental extension of tauto to first-order reasoning, written by Pierre Corbineau. It is not restricted to usual logical connectives but instead may reason about any first-order class inductive definition.

The default tactic used by firstorder when no rule applies is auto with *, it can be reset locally or globally using the Set Firstorder Solver tactic vernacular command and printed using Print Firstorder Solver.


Variants:

  1. firstorder tactic

    Tries to solve the goal with tactic when no logical rule may apply.

  2. firstorder using qualid1 , … , qualidn

    Adds lemmas qualid1 … qualidn to the proof-search environment. If qualidi refers to an inductive type, it is the collection of its constructors which are added to the proof-search environment.

  3. firstorder with ident1 … identn

    Adds lemmas from auto hint bases ident1 … identn to the proof-search environment.

  4. firstorder tactic using qualid1 , … , qualidn with ident1 … identn

    This combines the effects of the different variants of firstorder.

Proof-search is bounded by a depth parameter which can be set by typing the Set Firstorder Depth n vernacular command.

8.10.5  congruence

The tactic congruence, by Pierre Corbineau, implements the standard Nelson and Oppen congruence closure algorithm, which is a decision procedure for ground equalities with uninterpreted symbols. It also include the constructor theory (see 8.5.7 and 8.5.6). If the goal is a non-quantified equality, congruence tries to prove it with non-quantified equalities in the context. Otherwise it tries to infer a discriminable equality from those in the context. Alternatively, congruence tries to prove that a hypothesis is equal to the goal or to the negation of another hypothesis.

congruence is also able to take advantage of hypotheses stating quantified equalities, you have to provide a bound for the number of extra equalities generated that way. Please note that one of the members of the equality must contain all the quantified variables in order for congruence to match against it.

Coq < Theorem T:
        a=(f a) -> (g b (f a))=(f (f a)) -> (g a b)=(f (g b a)) -> (g a b)=a.
1 subgoal
  
  ============================
  a = f a -> g b (f a) = f (f a) -> g a b = f (g b a) -> g a b = a

Coq < intros.
1 subgoal
  
  H : a = f a
  H0 : g b (f a) = f (f a)
  H1 : g a b = f (g b a)
  ============================
  g a b = a

Coq < congruence.
No more subgoals.
Coq < Theorem inj : f = pair a -> Some (f c) = Some (f d) -> c=d.
1 subgoal
  
  ============================
  f = pair a -> Some (f c) = Some (f d) -> c = d

Coq < intros.
1 subgoal
  
  H : f = pair a
  H0 : Some (f c) = Some (f d)
  ============================
  c = d

Coq < congruence.
No more subgoals.


Variants:

  1. congruence n

    Tries to add at most n instances of hypotheses stating quantified equalities to the problem in order to solve it. A bigger value of n does not make success slower, only failure. You might consider adding some lemmas as hypotheses using assert in order for congruence to use them.

  2. congruence with term1 … termn

    Adds term1 … termn to the pool of terms used by congruence. This helps in case you have partially applied constructors in your goal.


Error messages:

  1. I don’t know how to handle dependent equality

    The decision procedure managed to find a proof of the goal or of a discriminable equality but this proof could not be built in Coq because of dependently-typed functions.

  2. Goal is solvable by congruence but some arguments are missing. Try "congruence with …", replacing metavariables by arbitrary terms.

    The decision procedure could solve the goal with the provision that additional arguments are supplied for some partially applied constructors. Any term of an appropriate type will allow the tactic to successfully solve the goal. Those additional arguments can be given to congruence by filling in the holes in the terms given in the error message, using the with variant described above.

8.11  Everything after this point has yet to be sorted

8.11.1  constr_eq term1 term2

This tactic applies to any goal. It checks whether its arguments are equal modulo alpha conversion and casts.


Error message: Not equal

8.11.2  unify term1 term2

This tactic applies to any goal. It checks whether its arguments are unifiable, potentially instantiating existential variables.


Error message: Not unifiable


Variants:

  1. unify term1 term2 with ident

    Unification takes the transparency information defined in the hint database ident into account (see Section 8.9.1).

8.11.3  is_evar term

This tactic applies to any goal. It checks whether its argument is an existential variable. Existential variables are uninstantiated variables generated by e.g. eapply (see Section 8.2.4).


Error message: Not an evar

8.11.4  has_evar term

This tactic applies to any goal. It checks whether its argument has an existential variable as a subterm. Unlike context patterns combined with is_evar, this tactic scans all subterms, including those under binders.


Error message: No evars

8.11.5  is_var term

This tactic applies to any goal. It checks whether its argument is a variable or hypothesis in the current goal context or in the opened sections.


Error message: Not a variable or hypothesis

8.12  Equality

8.12.1  f_equal

This tactic applies to a goal of the form f a1 … an = f′ a′1 … a′n. Using f_equal on such a goal leads to subgoals f=f′ and a1=a′1 and so on up to an=a′n. Amongst these subgoals, the simple ones (e.g. provable by reflexivity or congruence) are automatically solved by f_equal.

8.12.2  reflexivity

This tactic applies to a goal that has the form t=u. It checks that t and u are convertible and then solves the goal. It is equivalent to apply refl_equal.


Error messages:

  1. The conclusion is not a substitutive equation
  2. Impossible to unify … with …

8.12.3  symmetry

This tactic applies to a goal that has the form t=u and changes it into u=t.


Variants:

  1. symmetry in ident

    If the statement of the hypothesis ident has the form t=u, the tactic changes it to u=t.

8.12.4  transitivity term

This tactic applies to a goal that has the form t=u and transforms it into the two subgoals t=term and term=u.

8.13  Equality and inductive sets

We describe in this section some special purpose tactics dealing with equality and inductive sets or types. These tactics use the equality eq:forall (A:Type), A->A->Prop, simply written with the infix symbol =.

8.13.1  decide equality

This tactic solves a goal of the form forall x y:R, {x=y}+{~x=y}, where R is an inductive type such that its constructors do not take proofs or functions as arguments, nor objects in dependent types. It solves goals of the form {x=y}+{~x=y} as well.

8.13.2  compare term1 term2

This tactic compares two given objects term1 and term2 of an inductive datatype. If G is the current goal, it leaves the sub-goals term1=term2 -> G and ~term1=term2 -> G. The type of term1 and term2 must satisfy the same restrictions as in the tactic decide equality.

8.13.3  simplify_eq term

Let term be the proof of a statement of conclusion term1=term2. If term1 and term2 are structurally different (in the sense described for the tactic discriminate), then the tactic simplify_eq behaves as discriminate term, otherwise it behaves as injection term.


Remark: If some quantified hypothesis of the goal is named ident, then simplify_eq ident first introduces the hypothesis in the local context using intros until ident.


Variants:

  1. simplify_eq num

    This does the same thing as intros until num then simplify_eq ident where ident is the identifier for the last introduced hypothesis.

  2. simplify_eq term with bindings_list

    This does the same as simplify_eq term but using the given bindings to instantiate parameters or hypotheses of term.

  3. esimplify_eq num
    esimplify_eq term [with bindings_list]

    This works the same as simplify_eq but if the type of term, or the type of the hypothesis referred to by num, has uninstantiated parameters, these parameters are left as existential variables.

  4. simplify_eq

    If the current goal has form t1<>t2, it behaves as intro ident; simplify_eq ident.

8.13.4  dependent rewrite -> ident

This tactic applies to any goal. If ident has type (existT B a b)=(existT B a' b') in the local context (i.e. each term of the equality has a sigma type { a:A  & (B a)}) this tactic rewrites a into a' and b into b' in the current goal. This tactic works even if B is also a sigma type. This kind of equalities between dependent pairs may be derived by the injection and inversion tactics.


Variants:

  1. dependent rewrite <- ident

    Analogous to dependent rewrite -> but uses the equality from right to left.

8.14  Inversion

8.14.1  functional inversion ident

functional inversion is a tactic that performs inversion on hypothesis ident of the form qualid term1…termn = term or term = qualid term1…termn where qualid must have been defined using Function (see Section 2.3).


Error messages:

  1. Hypothesis ident must contain at least one Function
  2. Cannot find inversion information for hypothesis ident

    This error may be raised when some inversion lemma failed to be generated by Function.


Variants:

  1. functional inversion num

    This does the same thing as intros until num then functional inversion ident where ident is the identifier for the last introduced hypothesis.

  2. functional inversion ident qualid
    functional inversion num qualid

    If the hypothesis ident (or num) has a type of the form qualid1 term1…termn = qualid2 termn+1…termn+m where qualid1 and qualid2 are valid candidates to functional inversion, this variant allows choosing which qualid is inverted.

8.14.2  quote ident

This kind of inversion has nothing to do with the tactic inversion above. This tactic does change (ident t), where t is a term built in order to ensure the convertibility. In other words, it does inversion of the function ident. This function must be a fixpoint on a simple recursive datatype: see 10.3 for the full details.


Error messages:

  1. quote: not a simple fixpoint

    Happens when quote is not able to perform inversion properly.


Variants:

  1. quote ident [ ident1 …identn ]

    All terms that are built only with ident1 …identn will be considered by quote as constants rather than variables.

8.15  Classical tactics

In order to ease the proving process, when the Classical module is loaded. A few more tactics are available. Make sure to load the module using the Require Import command.

8.15.1  classical_left and classical_right

The tactics classical_left and classical_right are the analog of the left and right but using classical logic. They can only be used for disjunctions. Use classical_left to prove the left part of the disjunction with the assumption that the negation of right part holds. Use classical_right to prove the right part of the disjunction with the assumption that the negation of left part holds.

8.16  Automatizing

8.16.1  btauto

The tactic btauto implements a reflexive solver for boolean tautologies. It solves goals of the form t = u where t and u are constructed over the following grammar:

t ::= x ∣ true ∣ false∣ orb t1 t2 ∣ andb t1 t2 ∣xorb t1 t2 ∣negb t ∣if t1 then t2 else t3

Whenever the formula supplied is not a tautology, it also provides a counter-example.

Internally, it uses a system very similar to the one of the ring tactic.

8.16.2  omega

The tactic omega, due to Pierre Crégut, is an automatic decision procedure for Presburger arithmetic. It solves quantifier-free formulas built with ~, \/, /\, -> on top of equalities, inequalities and disequalities on both the type nat of natural numbers and Z of binary integers. This tactic must be loaded by the command Require Import Omega. See the additional documentation about omega (see Chapter 21).

8.16.3  ring and ring_simplify term1 … termn

The ring tactic solves equations upon polynomial expressions of a ring (or semi-ring) structure. It proceeds by normalizing both hand sides of the equation (w.r.t. associativity, commutativity and distributivity, constant propagation) and comparing syntactically the results.

ring_simplify applies the normalization procedure described above to the terms given. The tactic then replaces all occurrences of the terms given in the conclusion of the goal by their normal forms. If no term is given, then the conclusion should be an equation and both hand sides are normalized.

See Chapter 25 for more information on the tactic and how to declare new ring structures. All declared field structures can be printed with the Print Rings command.

8.16.4  field, field_simplify term1 … termn, and field_simplify_eq

The field tactic is built on the same ideas as ring: this is a reflexive tactic that solves or simplifies equations in a field structure. The main idea is to reduce a field expression (which is an extension of ring expressions with the inverse and division operations) to a fraction made of two polynomial expressions.

Tactic field is used to solve subgoals, whereas field_simplify term1…termn replaces the provided terms by their reduced fraction. field_simplify_eq applies when the conclusion is an equation: it simplifies both hand sides and multiplies so as to cancel denominators. So it produces an equation without division nor inverse.

All of these 3 tactics may generate a subgoal in order to prove that denominators are different from zero.

See Chapter 25 for more information on the tactic and how to declare new field structures. All declared field structures can be printed with the Print Fields command.


Example:

Coq < Require Import Reals.

Coq < Goal forall x y:R,
          (x * y > 0)%R ->
          (x * (1 / x + x / (x + y)))%R =
          ((- 1 / y) * y * (- x * (x / (x + y)) - 1))%R.
Coq < intros; field.
1 subgoal
  
  x, y : R
  H : (x * y > 0)%R
  ============================
  (x + y)%R <> 0%R /\ y <> 0%R /\ x <> 0%R


See also: file plugins/setoid_ring/RealField.v for an example of instantiation,
    theory theories/Reals for many examples of use of field.

8.16.5  fourier

This tactic written by Loïc Pottier solves linear inequalities on real numbers using Fourier’s method [65]. This tactic must be loaded by Require Import Fourier.


Example:

Coq < Require Import Reals.

Coq < Require Import Fourier.

Coq < Goal forall x y:R, (x < y)%R -> (y + 1 >= x - 1)%R.
Coq < intros; fourier.
No more subgoals.

8.17  Non-logical tactics

8.17.1  cycle num

This tactic puts the num first goals at the end of the list of goals. If num is negative, it will put the last |num| goals at the beginning of the list.


Example:

Coq < Parameter P : nat -> Prop.

Coq < Goal P 1 /\ P 2 /\ P 3 /\ P 4 /\ P 5.

Coq < repeat split.
5 subgoals
  
  ============================
  P 1
subgoal 2 is:
 P 2
subgoal 3 is:
 P 3
subgoal 4 is:
 P 4
subgoal 5 is:
 P 5

Coq < all: cycle 2.
5 subgoals
  
  ============================
  P 3
subgoal 2 is:
 P 4
subgoal 3 is:
 P 5
subgoal 4 is:
 P 1
subgoal 5 is:
 P 2

Coq < all: cycle -3.
5 subgoals
  
  ============================
  P 5
subgoal 2 is:
 P 1
subgoal 3 is:
 P 2
subgoal 4 is:
 P 3
subgoal 5 is:
 P 4

8.17.2  swap num1 num2

This tactic switches the position of the goals of indices num1 and num2. If either num1 or num2 is negative then goals are counted from the end of the focused goal list. Goals are indexed from 1, there is no goal with position 0.


Example:

Coq < Parameter P : nat -> Prop.

Coq < Goal P 1 /\ P 2 /\ P 3 /\ P 4 /\ P 5.

Coq < repeat split.
5 subgoals
  
  ============================
  P 1
subgoal 2 is:
 P 2
subgoal 3 is:
 P 3
subgoal 4 is:
 P 4
subgoal 5 is:
 P 5

Coq < all: swap 1 3.
5 subgoals
  
  ============================
  P 3
subgoal 2 is:
 P 2
subgoal 3 is:
 P 1
subgoal 4 is:
 P 4
subgoal 5 is:
 P 5

Coq < all: swap 1 -1.
5 subgoals
  
  ============================
  P 5
subgoal 2 is:
 P 2
subgoal 3 is:
 P 1
subgoal 4 is:
 P 4
subgoal 5 is:
 P 3

8.17.3  revgoals

This tactics reverses the list of the focused goals.


Example:

Coq < Parameter P : nat -> Prop.

Coq < Goal P 1 /\ P 2 /\ P 3 /\ P 4 /\ P 5.

Coq < repeat split.
5 subgoals
  
  ============================
  P 1
subgoal 2 is:
 P 2
subgoal 3 is:
 P 3
subgoal 4 is:
 P 4
subgoal 5 is:
 P 5

Coq < all: revgoals.
5 subgoals
  
  ============================
  P 5
subgoal 2 is:
 P 4
subgoal 3 is:
 P 3
subgoal 4 is:
 P 2
subgoal 5 is:
 P 1

8.17.4  shelve

This tactic moves all goals under focus to a shelf. While on the shelf, goals will not be focused on. They can be solved by unification, or they can be called back into focus with the command Unshelve (Section 8.17.5).


Variants:

  1. shelve_unifiable

    Shelves only the goals under focus that are mentioned in other goals. Goals that appear in the type of other goals can be solved by unification.


    Example:

    Coq < Goal exists n, n=0.
    1 subgoal
      
      ============================
      exists n : nat, n = 0

    Coq < refine (ex_intro _ _ _).
    1 focused subgoal
    (shelved: 1)
      
      ============================
      ?Goal = 0

    Coq < all:shelve_unifiable.
    1 focused subgoal
    (shelved: 1)
      
      ============================
      ?Goal = 0

    Coq < reflexivity.
    No more subgoals.

8.17.5  Unshelve

This command moves all the goals on the shelf (see Section 8.17.4) from the shelf into focus, by appending them to the end of the current list of focused goals.

8.17.6  give_up

This tactic removes the focused goals from the proof. They are not solved, and cannot be solved later in the proof. As the goals are not solved, the proof cannot be closed.

The give_up tactic can be used while editing a proof, to choose to write the proof script in a non-sequential order.

8.18  Simple tactic macros

A simple example has more value than a long explanation:

Coq < Ltac Solve := simpl; intros; auto.
Solve is defined

Coq < Ltac ElimBoolRewrite b H1 H2 :=
        elim b; [ intros; rewrite H1; eauto | intros; rewrite H2; eauto ].
ElimBoolRewrite is defined

The tactics macros are synchronous with the Coq section mechanism: a tactic definition is deleted from the current environment when you close the section (see also 2.4) where it was defined. If you want that a tactic macro defined in a module is usable in the modules that require it, you should put it outside of any section.

Chapter 9 gives examples of more complex user-defined tactics.

1
Actually, only the second subgoal will be generated since the other one can be automatically checked.
2
This corresponds to the cut rule of sequent calculus.
3
Reminder: opaque constants will not be expanded by δ reductions.
4
The behavior of this tactic has much changed compared to the versions available in the previous distributions (V6). This may cause significant changes in your theories to obtain the same result. As a drawback of the re-engineering of the code, this tactic has also been completely revised to get a very compact and readable version.