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VERIFYING THE UNIFICATION ALGORITHM IN LCF

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

PAULSON, LC 

Abstract

Manna and Waldinger's theory of substitutions and unification has been verified using the Cambridge LCF theorem prover. A proof of the monotonicity of substitution is presented in detail, as an example of interaction with LCF. Translating the theory into LCF's domain-theoretic logic is largely straightforward. Well-founded induction on a complex ordering is translated into nested structural inductions. Correctness of unification is expressed using predicates for such properties as idempotence and most-generality. The verification is presented as a series of lemmas. The LCF proofs are compared with the original ones, and with other approaches. It appears difficult to find a logic that is both simple and flexible, especially for proving termination.

Description

Keywords

cs.LO, cs.LO, D.2.4; F.3.1; F.4.1

Journal Title

SCI COMPUT PROGRAM

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0167-6423

Volume Title

5

Publisher

Elsevier BV