diff -r f51d4a302962 -r 5386df44a037 src/Doc/Tutorial/Recdef/Induction.thy
--- /dev/null	Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000
+++ b/src/Doc/Tutorial/Recdef/Induction.thy	Tue Aug 28 18:57:32 2012 +0200
@@ -0,0 +1,71 @@
+(*<*)
+theory Induction imports examples simplification begin;
+(*>*)
+
+text{*
+Assuming we have defined our function such that Isabelle could prove
+termination and that the recursion equations (or some suitable derived
+equations) are simplification rules, we might like to prove something about
+our function. Since the function is recursive, the natural proof principle is
+again induction. But this time the structural form of induction that comes
+with datatypes is unlikely to work well --- otherwise we could have defined the
+function by \isacommand{primrec}. Therefore \isacommand{recdef} automatically
+proves a suitable induction rule $f$@{text".induct"} that follows the
+recursion pattern of the particular function $f$. We call this
+\textbf{recursion induction}. Roughly speaking, it
+requires you to prove for each \isacommand{recdef} equation that the property
+you are trying to establish holds for the left-hand side provided it holds
+for all recursive calls on the right-hand side. Here is a simple example
+involving the predefined @{term"map"} functional on lists:
+*}
+
+lemma "map f (sep(x,xs)) = sep(f x, map f xs)";
+
+txt{*\noindent
+Note that @{term"map f xs"}
+is the result of applying @{term"f"} to all elements of @{term"xs"}. We prove
+this lemma by recursion induction over @{term"sep"}:
+*}
+
+apply(induct_tac x xs rule: sep.induct);
+
+txt{*\noindent
+The resulting proof state has three subgoals corresponding to the three
+clauses for @{term"sep"}:
+@{subgoals[display,indent=0]}
+The rest is pure simplification:
+*}
+
+apply simp_all;
+done
+
+text{*
+Try proving the above lemma by structural induction, and you find that you
+need an additional case distinction. What is worse, the names of variables
+are invented by Isabelle and have nothing to do with the names in the
+definition of @{term"sep"}.
+
+In general, the format of invoking recursion induction is
+\begin{quote}
+\isacommand{apply}@{text"(induct_tac"} $x@1 \dots x@n$ @{text"rule:"} $f$@{text".induct)"}
+\end{quote}\index{*induct_tac (method)}%
+where $x@1~\dots~x@n$ is a list of free variables in the subgoal and $f$ the
+name of a function that takes an $n$-tuple. Usually the subgoal will
+contain the term $f(x@1,\dots,x@n)$ but this need not be the case. The
+induction rules do not mention $f$ at all. Here is @{thm[source]sep.induct}:
+\begin{isabelle}
+{\isasymlbrakk}~{\isasymAnd}a.~P~a~[];\isanewline
+~~{\isasymAnd}a~x.~P~a~[x];\isanewline
+~~{\isasymAnd}a~x~y~zs.~P~a~(y~\#~zs)~{\isasymLongrightarrow}~P~a~(x~\#~y~\#~zs){\isasymrbrakk}\isanewline
+{\isasymLongrightarrow}~P~u~v%
+\end{isabelle}
+It merely says that in order to prove a property @{term"P"} of @{term"u"} and
+@{term"v"} you need to prove it for the three cases where @{term"v"} is the
+empty list, the singleton list, and the list with at least two elements.
+The final case has an induction hypothesis:  you may assume that @{term"P"}
+holds for the tail of that list.
+*}
+
+(*<*)
+end
+(*>*)