Library stdpp.nat_cancel

The class NatCancel m n m' n' is a simple canceler for natural numbers implemented using type classes. Input: m, n; output: m', n'. It turns an equality n = m into an equality n' = m' by canceling out terms that appear on both sides of the equality. We provide instances to handle the following connectives over natural numbers: n := 0 | t | n + m | S m Here, t represents arbitrary terms that do not fit the grammar. The instances the class perform a depth-first traversal (from left to right) through n and try to cancel each leaf in m. This implies that the shape of the original expressions n and m are preserved as much as possible. For example, canceling: S (S m2) + (k1 + (S k2 + k3)) + n1 = 2 + S ((n1 + S n2) + S (S m1 + m2)) Results in: k1 + (k2 + k3) = S (n2 + S (S m1)) The instances are setup up so that canceling is performed in two stages.

• In the first stage, using the class NatCancelL, it traverses m w.r.t. S and +.
• In the second stage, for each leaf (i.e. a constant or arbitrary term) obtained by the traversal in stage 1, it uses the class NatCancelR to cancel the leaf in n.

Be warned: Since the canceler is implemented using type classes it should only be used it either of the inputs is relatively small. For bigger inputs, an approach based on reflection would be better, but for small inputs, the overhead of reification will probably not be worth it.

The implementation of the canceler is highly non-deterministic, but since it will always succeed, no backtracking will ever be performed. In order to avoid issues like: https://gitlab.mpi-sws.org/FP/iris-coq/issues/153 we wrap the entire canceler in the NoBackTrack class.

The instance nat_cancel_S_both is redundant, but may reduce proof search quite a bit, e.g. when canceling constants in constants.