Chapter 6: Proof handling
Chapter 6: Proof handling
In Coq's proof editing mode all top-level commands documented in
chapter 5 remain available
and the user has access to specialized commands dealing with proof
development pragmas documented in this section. He can also use some
other specialized commands called tactics. They are the very
tools allowing the user to deal with logical reasoning. They are
documented in chapter 7.
When switching in editing proof mode, the prompt
Coq < is changed into ident < where ident is the
declared name of the theorem currently edited.
At each stage of a proof development, one has a list of goals to
prove. Initially, the list consists only in the theorem itself. After
having applied some tactics, the list of goals contains the subgoals
generated by the tactics.
To each subgoal is associated a number of
hypotheses we call the local context of the goal.
Initially, the local context is empty. It is enriched by the use of
certain tactics (see mainly section 7.3.3).
When a proof is achieved the message Subtree proved! is
displayed. One can then store this proof as a defined constant in the
environment. Because there exists a correspondence between proofs and
terms of l-calculus, known as the Curry-Howard
isomorphism [54, 5, 51, 56], Coq stores proofs as
terms of Cic. Those terms are called proof
terms.
It is possible to edit several proofs at the same time: see section
6.1.7
Error message: When one attempts to use a proof editing command out of the
proof editing mode, Coq raises the error message : No focused
proof.
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