bossLib.xDefine

STRUCTURE

SYNOPSIS

General-purpose function definition facility.

DESCRIPTION

xDefine behaves exactly like Define, except that it takes an alphanumeric string which is used as a stem for building names with which to store the definition, associated induction theorem (if there is one), and any auxiliary definitions used to construct the specified function (if there are any) in the current theory segment.

FAILURE

xDefine allows the definition of symbolic identifiers, but Define doesn’t. In all other respects, xDefine and Define succeed and fail in the same way.

EXAMPLE

The following example shows how Define fails when asked to define a symbolic identifier.

    - set_fixity ("/", Infixl 600);    (* tell the parser about "/" *)
    > val it = () : unit

    - Define 
       `x/y = if y=0 then NONE else
              if x<y then SOME 0 
               else OPTION_MAP SUC ((x-y)/y)`;

    Definition failed! Can't make name for storing definition
    because there is no alphanumeric identifier in: 

       "/".

    Try "xDefine <alphanumeric-stem> <eqns-quotation>" instead.

Next the same definition is attempted with xDefine, supplying the name for binding the definition and the induction theorem with in the current theory.

    - xDefine "div"
         `x/y = if y=0 then NONE else
                if x<y then SOME 0 
                 else OPTION_MAP SUC ((x-y)/y)`;

    Equations stored under "div_def".
    Induction stored under "div_ind".

    > val it =
        |- x / y =
           (if y = 0 then NONE
            else
             (if x < y then SOME 0 
                       else OPTION_MAP SUC ((x - y) / y))) : thm

COMMENTS

Define can be thought of as an application of xDefine, in which the stem is taken to be the name of the function being defined.

bossLib.xDefine is most commonly used. TotalDefn.xDefine is identical to bossLib.xDefine, except that the TotalDefn structure comes with less baggage---it depends only on numLib and pairLib.

SEEALSO

Define