src/HOL/TPTP/CASC/SysDesc_Nitpick.html

tuned;

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<H2>Nitpick 2016-1</H2>
Jasmin C. Blanchette<BR>
Technische Universit&auml;t M&uuml;nchen, Germany <BR>

<H3>Architecture</H3>

Nitpick [<A HREF="#References">BN10</A>] is an open source counterexample
generator for Isabelle/HOL [<A HREF="#References">NPW13</A>]. It builds on
Kodkod [<A HREF="#References">TJ07</A>], a highly optimized first-order
relational model finder based on SAT. The name Nitpick is appropriated from a
now retired Alloy precursor. In a case study, it was applied successfully to a
formalization of the C++ memory model [<A HREF="#References">BWB+11</A>].

<H3>Strategies</H3>

<p>
Nitpick employs Kodkod to find a finite model of the negated conjecture. The
translation from HOL to Kodkod's first-order relational logic (FORL) is
parameterized by the cardinalities of the atomic types occurring in it. Nitpick
enumerates the possible cardinalities for each atomic type, exploiting
monotonicity to prune the search space [<A HREF="#References">BK11</A>]. If a
formula has a finite counterexample, the tool eventually finds it, unless it
runs out of resources.

<p>
SAT solvers are particularly sensitive to the encoding of problems, so special
care is needed when translating HOL formulas.
As a rule, HOL scalars are mapped to FORL singletons and functions are mapped to
FORL relations accompanied by a constraint. More specifically,
an <i>n</i>-ary first-order function (curried or not) can be coded as an
(<i>n</i> + 1)-ary relation accompanied by a constraint. However, if the return
type is the type of Booleans, the function is more efficiently coded as an
unconstrained <i>n</i>-ary relation.
Higher-order quantification and functions bring complications of their own. A
function from &sigma; to &tau; cannot be directly passed as an argument in FORL;
Nitpick's workaround is to pass |&sigma;| arguments of type &tau; that encode a
function table.

<H3>Implementation</H3>

<p>
Nitpick, like most of Isabelle/HOL, is written in Standard ML. Unlike Isabelle
itself, which adheres to the LCF small-kernel discipline, Nitpick does not
certify its results and must be trusted.
<P>
Nitpick is available as part of Isabelle/HOL for all major platforms under a
BSD-style license from
<PRE>
    <A HREF="http:////www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/hvg/Isabelle/">http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/hvg/Isabelle</A></PRE>

<H3>Expected Competition Performance</H3>

<P>
Thanks to Kodkod's amazing power, we expect that Nitpick will beat both Satallax
and Refute with its hands tied behind its back.

<H3>References</H3>
<DL>
<DT> BK11
<DD> Blanchette J. C., Krauss A. (2011),
     <STRONG>Monotonicity Inference for Higher-Order Formulas</STRONG>,
     <EM>J. Autom. Reasoning</EM> 47(4), pp. 369&ndash;398, 2011.
<DT> BN10
<DD> Blanchette J. C., Nipkow T. (2010),
     <STRONG>Nitpick: A Counterexample Generator for Higher-Order Logic Based on a Relational Model Finder</STRONG>,
     ITP 2010, <EM>LNCS</EM> 6172, pp. 131&ndash;146, Springer.
<DT> BWB+11
<DD> Blanchette J. C., Weber T., Batty M., Owens S., Sarkar S. (2011),
	 <STRONG>Nitpicking C++ Concurrency</STRONG>,
	 PPDP 2011, pp. 113&ndash;124, ACM Press.
<DT> NPW13
<DD> Nipkow T., Paulson L. C., Wenzel M. (2013),
     <STRONG>Isabelle/HOL: A Proof Assistant for Higher-Order Logic</STRONG>,
     <A HREF="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/hvg/Isabelle/dist/Isabelle/doc/tutorial.pdf">http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/hvg/Isabelle/dist/Isabelle/doc/tutorial.pdf</a>.
<DT> TJ07
<DD> Torlak E., Jackson D. (2007),
     <STRONG>Kodkod: A Relational Model Finder</STRONG>, TACAS 2007,
	 <EM>LNCS</EM> 4424, pp. 632&ndash;647, Springer.
</DL>
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