Decreasing Diagrams for Confluence and Commutation

Like termination, confluence is a central property of rewrite systems. Unlike for termination, however, there exists no known complexity hierarchy for confluence. In this paper we investigate whether the decreasing diagrams technique can be used to obtain such a hierarchy. The decreasing diagrams technique is one of the strongest and most versatile methods for proving confluence of abstract rewrite systems. It is complete for countable systems, and it has many well-known confluence criteria as corollaries. So what makes decreasing diagrams so powerful? In contrast to other confluence techniques, decreasing diagrams employ a labelling of the steps with labels from a well-founded order in order to conclude confluence of the underlying unlabelled relation. Hence it is natural to ask how the size of the label set influences the strength of the technique. In particular, what class of abstract rewrite systems can be proven confluent using decreasing diagrams restricted to 1 label, 2 labels, 3 labels, and so on? Surprisingly, we find that two labels suffice for proving confluence for every abstract rewrite system having the cofinality property, thus in particular for every confluent, countable system. Secondly, we show that this result stands in sharp contrast to the situation for commutation of rewrite relations, where the hierarchy does not collapse. Thirdly, investigating the possibility of a confluence hierarchy, we determine the first-order (non-)definability of the notion of confluence and related properties, using techniques from finite model theory. We find that in particular Hanf's theorem is fruitful for elegant proofs of undefinability of properties of abstract rewrite systems

Term rewriting systems from Church-Rosser to Knuth-Bendix and beyond

Term rewriting systems are important for computability theory of abstract data types, for automatic theorem proving, and for the foundations of functional programming. In this short survey we present, starting from first principles, several of the basic notions and facts in the area of term rewriting. Our treatment, which often will be informal, covers abstract rewriting, Combinatory Logic, orthogonal systems, strategies, critical pair completion, and some extended rewriting formats

Decreasing Diagrams with Two Labels Are Complete for Confluence of Countable Systems

Like termination, confluence is a central property of rewrite systems. Unlike for termination, however, there exists no known complexity hierarchy for confluence. In this paper we investigate whether the decreasing diagrams technique can be used to obtain such a hierarchy. The decreasing diagrams technique is one of the strongest and most versatile methods for proving confluence of abstract reduction systems, it is complete for countable systems, and it has many well-known confluence criteria as corollaries. So what makes decreasing diagrams so powerful? In contrast to other confluence techniques, decreasing diagrams employ a labelling of the steps -> with labels from a well-founded order in order to conclude confluence of the underlying unlabelled relation. Hence it is natural to ask how the size of the label set influences the strength of the technique. In particular, what class of abstract reduction systems can be proven confluent using decreasing diagrams restricted to 1 label, 2 labels, 3 labels, and so on? Surprisingly, we find that two labels suffice for proving confluence for every abstract rewrite system having the cofinality property, thus in particular for every confluent, countable system. We also show that this result stands in sharp contrast to the situation for commutation of rewrite relations, where the hierarchy does not collapse. Finally, as a background theme, we discuss the logical issue of first-order definability of the notion of confluence

A Matter of capabilities

Contains fulltext : 163374.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access

Discriminating Lambda-Terms Using Clocked Boehm Trees

As observed by Intrigila, there are hardly techniques available in the lambda-calculus to prove that two lambda-terms are not beta-convertible. Techniques employing the usual Boehm Trees are inadequate when we deal with terms having the same Boehm Tree (BT). This is the case in particular for fixed point combinators, as they all have the same BT. Another interesting equation, whose consideration was suggested by Scott, is BY = BYS, an equation valid in the classical model P-omega of lambda-calculus, and hence valid with respect to BT-equality but nevertheless the terms are beta-inconvertible. To prove such beta-inconvertibilities, we employ `clocked' BT's, with annotations that convey information of the tempo in which the data in the BT are produced. Boehm Trees are thus enriched with an intrinsic clock behaviour, leading to a refined discrimination method for lambda-terms. The corresponding equality is strictly intermediate between beta-convertibility and Boehm Tree equality, the equality in the model P-omega. An analogous approach pertains to Levy-Longo and Berarducci Trees. Our refined Boehm Trees find in particular an application in beta-discriminating fixed point combinators (fpc's). It turns out that Scott's equation BY = BYS is the key to unlocking a plethora of fpc's, generated by a variety of production schemes of which the simplest was found by Boehm, stating that new fpc's are obtained by postfixing the term SI, also known as Smullyan's Owl. We prove that all these newly generated fpc's are indeed new, by considering their clocked BT's. Even so, not all pairs of new fpc's can be discriminated this way. For that purpose we increase the discrimination power by a precision of the clock notion that we call `atomic clock'.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1002.257