Pragmatic Isomorphism Proofs Between Coq Representations: Application to Lambda-Term Families

There are several ways to formally represent families of data, such as lambda terms, in a type theory such as the dependent type theory of Coq. Mathematical representations are very compact ones and usually rely on the use of dependent types, but they tend to be difficult to handle in practice. On the contrary, implementations based on a larger (and simpler) data structure combined with a restriction property are much easier to deal with. In this work, we study several families related to lambda terms, among which Motzkin trees, seen as lambda term skeletons, closable Motzkin trees, corresponding to closed lambda terms, and a parameterized family of open lambda terms. For each of these families, we define two different representations, show that they are isomorphic and provide tools to switch from one representation to another. All these datatypes and their associated transformations are implemented in the Coq proof assistant. Furthermore we implement random generators for each representation, using the QuickChick plugin

Tests and proofs for custom data generators

International audienceWe address automated testing and interactive proving of properties involving complex data structures with constraints, like the ones studied in enumerative combinatorics, e.g., permutations and maps. In this paper we show testing techniques to check properties of custom data generators for these structures. We focus on random property-based testing and bounded exhaustive testing, to find counterexamples for false conjectures in the Coq proof assistant. For random testing we rely on the existing Coq plugin QuickChick and its toolbox to write random generators. For bounded exhaustive testing, we use logic programming to generate all the data up to a given size. We also propose an extension of QuickChick with bounded exhaustive testing based on generators developed inside Coq, but also on correct-by-construction generators developed with Why3. These tools are applied to an original Coq formalization of the combinatorial structures of permutations and rooted maps, together with some operations on them and properties about them. Recursive generators are defined for each combinatorial family. They are used for debugging properties which are finally proved in Coq. This large case study is also a contribution in enumerative combinatorics