numSyntax.dest

An invocation dest_numeral tm, where tm is a HOL numeral (a literal of type num), returns the corrresponding ML value of type Arbnum.num. A numeral is a dyadic positional notation described by the following BNF:

     <numeral> ::= 0 | NUMERAL <bits>
     <bits>    ::= ZERO | BIT1 (<bits>) | BIT2 (<bits>)

The NUMERAL constant is used as a tag signalling that its argument is indeed a numeric literal. The ZERO constant is equal to 0, and BIT1(n) = 2*n + 1 while BIT2(n) = 2*n + 2. This representation allows asymptotically efficient operations on numeric values.

The system prettyprinter will print a numeral as a string of digits.