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Structured Theory Development for a Mechanized Logic

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Abstract

Experience has shown that large or multi-user interactive proof efforts can benefit significantly from structuring mechanisms, much like those available in many modern programming languages. Such a mechanism can allow some lemmas and definitions to be exported, and others not. In this paper we address two such structuring mechanisms for the ACL2 theorem prover: encapsulation and books. After presenting an introduction to ACL2, this paper justifies the implementation of ACL2's structuring mechanisms and, more generally, formulates and proves high-level correctness properties of ACL2. The issues in the present paper are relevant not only for ACL2 but also for other theorem-proving environments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., 5900 E. Ben White Blvd., Austin, TX, 78741, U.S.A.

    Matt Kaufmann

  2. Dept. of Computer Sciences, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 78712, U.S.A.

    J Strother Moore

Authors
  1. Matt Kaufmann
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  2. J Strother Moore
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Kaufmann, M., Moore, J.S. Structured Theory Development for a Mechanized Logic. Journal of Automated Reasoning 26, 161–203 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026517200045

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