Projections for infinitary rewriting

Proof terms in term rewriting are a representation means for reduction sequences, and more in general for contraction activity, allowing to distinguish e.g simultaneous from sequential reduction. Proof terms for finitary, first-order, left-linear term rewriting are described in the Terese book, chapter 8. In a previous work, we defined an extension of the finitary proof-term formalism, that allows to describe contractions in infinitary first-order term rewriting, and gave a characterisation of permutation equivalence. In this work, we discuss how projections of possibly infinite rewrite sequences can be modeled using proof terms. Again, the foundation is a characterisation of projections for finitary rewriting described in Terese, Section 8.7. We extend this characterisation to infinitary rewriting and also refine it, by describing precisely the role that structural equivalence plays in the development of the notion of projection. The characterisation we propose yields a definite expression, i.e. a proof term, that describes the projection of an infinitary reduction over another. To illustrate the working of projections, we show how a common reduct of a (possibly infinite) reduction and a single step that makes part of it can be obtained via their respective projections. We show, by means of several examples, that the proposed definition yields the expected behavior also in cases beyond those covered by this result. Finally, we discuss how the notion of limit is used in our definition of projection for infinite reduction

Modularity of Convergence and Strong Convergence in Infinitary Rewriting

Properties of Term Rewriting Systems are called modular iff they are preserved under (and reflected by) disjoint union, i.e. when combining two Term Rewriting Systems with disjoint signatures. Convergence is the property of Infinitary Term Rewriting Systems that all reduction sequences converge to a limit. Strong Convergence requires in addition that redex positions in a reduction sequence move arbitrarily deep. In this paper it is shown that both Convergence and Strong Convergence are modular properties of non-collapsing Infinitary Term Rewriting Systems, provided (for convergence) that the term metrics are granular. This generalises known modularity results beyond metric \infty

Automated Termination Proofs for Logic Programs by Term Rewriting

There are two kinds of approaches for termination analysis of logic programs: "transformational" and "direct" ones. Direct approaches prove termination directly on the basis of the logic program. Transformational approaches transform a logic program into a term rewrite system (TRS) and then analyze termination of the resulting TRS instead. Thus, transformational approaches make all methods previously developed for TRSs available for logic programs as well. However, the applicability of most existing transformations is quite restricted, as they can only be used for certain subclasses of logic programs. (Most of them are restricted to well-moded programs.) In this paper we improve these transformations such that they become applicable for any definite logic program. To simulate the behavior of logic programs by TRSs, we slightly modify the notion of rewriting by permitting infinite terms. We show that our transformation results in TRSs which are indeed suitable for automated termination analysis. In contrast to most other methods for termination of logic programs, our technique is also sound for logic programming without occur check, which is typically used in practice. We implemented our approach in the termination prover AProVE and successfully evaluated it on a large collection of examples.Comment: 49 page

Star Games and Hydras

The recursive path ordering is an established and crucial tool in term rewriting to prove termination. We revisit its presentation by means of some simple rules on trees (or corresponding terms) equipped with a 'star' as control symbol, signifying a command to make that tree (or term) smaller in the order being defined. This leads to star games that are very convenient for proving termination of many rewriting tasks. For instance, using already the simplest star game on finite unlabeled trees, we obtain a very direct proof of termination of the famous Hydra battle, direct in the sense that there is not the usual mention of ordinals. We also include an alternative road to setting up the star games, using a proof method of Buchholz, adapted by van Oostrom, resulting in a quantitative version of the star as control symbol. We conclude with a number of questions and future research directions

Copatterns: programming infinite structures by observations

This article which will appear in the proceedings of POPL 2013 in January 2013, introduces the dual of pattern matching, as it is used in functional programming for defining functions, by copatterns. Whereas data types are eliminated by pattern matching, i.e. by giving giving a choice for each constructor, coalgebras are introduced by copatterns, namely by giving the result of each eliminator. Patterns and copatterns are entirely symmetrical. This article introduces a language which allows to define data types, coalgebras, and functions by nested pattern and copattern matching. An operational semantics is introduced, and type soundness and subject reduction is shown