delete_type

Theory.delete_type : string -> unit

Remove a type operator from the signature.

An invocation delete_type s removes the type constant denoted by s from the current HOL segment. All types, terms, and theorems that depend on that type should therefore disappear, as though they hadn’t been constructed in the first place. Conceptually, they have become “garbage” and need to be collected. However, because of the way that HOL is implemented in ML, it is not possible to have them automatically collected. Instead, HOL tracks the currency of type and term constants and provides some consistency maintenance support.

In particular, the implementation ensures that a deleted type operator is never equal to a subsequently declared type operator with the same name (and arity). Furthermore, although garbage types, terms, and theorems may exist in a session, no theorem, definition, or axiom that is garbage is exported when export_theory is invoked.

The notion of garbage is hereditary. Any type, term, definition, or theorem is garbage if any of its constituents are. Furthermore, if a type operator or term constant had been defined, and its witness theorem later becomes garbage, then that type or term is garbage, as is anything built from it.

Failure

If a type constant named s has not been declared in the current segment, a warning will be issued, but an exception will not be raised.

Example

new_type ("foo", 2);
> val it = () : unit

- val thm = REFL (Term `f:('a,'b)foo`);
> val thm = |- f = f : thm

- delete_type "foo";
> val it = () : unit

- thm;
> val it = |- f = f : thm

- show_types := true;
> val it = () : unit

- thm;
> val it = |- (x :(('a, 'b) scratch$old->f<-old)) = x : thm

Comments

It’s rather dodgy to withdraw constants from the HOL signature.

It is not possible to delete constants from ancestor theories.

See also

Theory.delete_const, Theory.uptodate_type, Theory.uptodate_term, Theory.uptodate_thm, Theory.scrub