Lash 1.0 (System Description)

Abstract

Lash is a higher-order automated theorem prover created as a fork of the theorem prover Satallax. The basic underlying calculus of Satallax is a ground tableau calculus whose rules only use shallow information about the terms and formulas taking part in the rule. Lash uses new, efficient C representations of vital structures and operations. Most importantly, Lash uses a C representation of (normal) terms with perfect sharing along with a C implementation of normalizing substitutions. We describe the ways in which Lash differs from Satallax and the performance improvement of Lash over Satallax when used with analogous flag settings. With a 10 s timeout Lash outperforms Satallax on a collection TH0 problems from the TPTP. We conclude with ideas for continuing the development of Lash.

1 Introduction

Satallax [4, 7] is an automated theorem prover for higher-order logic that was a top competitor in the THF division of CASC [10] for most of the 2010s. The basic calculus of Satallax is a complete ground tableau calculus [2, 5, 6]. In recent years the top systems of the THF division of CASC are primarily based on resolution and superposition [3, 8, 11]. At the moment it is an open question whether there is a research and development path via which a tableau based prover could again become competitive. As a first step towards answering this question we have created a fork of Satallax, called Lash, focused on giving efficient C implementations of data structures and operations needed for search in the basic calculus.

Satallax was partly competitive due to (optional) additions that went beyond the basic calculus. Three of the most successful additions were the use of higher-order pattern clauses during search, the use of higher-order unification as a heuristic to suggest instantiations at function types and the use of the first-order theorem prover E as a backend to try to prove the first-order part of the current state is already unsatisfiable. Satallax includes flags that can be used to activate or deactivate such additions so that search only uses the basic calculus. They are deactivated by default. Satallax has three representations of terms in Ocaml. The basic calculus rules use the primary representation. Higher-order unification and pattern clauses make use of a representation that includes a case for metavariables to be instantiated. Communication with E uses a third representation restricted to first-order terms and formulas. When only the basic calculus is used, only the primary representation is needed.

Assuming only the basic calculus is used only limited information about (normal) terms is needed during the search. Typically we only need to know the outer structure of the principal formulas of each rule, and so the full term does not need to be traversed. In some cases Satallax either implicitly or explicitly traverses the term. The implicit cases are when a rule needs to know if two terms are equal. In Satallax, Ocaml’s equality is used to test for equality of terms, implicitly relying on a recursion over the term. The explicit cases are quantifier rules that instantiate with either a term or a fresh constant. In the former case we may also need to normalize the result after instantiating with a term.

In order to give an optimized implementation of the basic calculus we have created a new theorem prover, Lash¹, by forking a recent version of Satallax (Satallax 3.4), the last version that won the THF division of CASC (in 2019). Generally speaking, we have removed all the additional code that goes beyond the basic calculus. In particular we do not need terms with metavariables since we support neither pattern clauses nor higher-order unification in Lash. Likewise we do not need a special representation for first-order terms and formulas since Lash does not communicate with E. We have added efficient C implementations of (normal) terms with perfect sharing. Additionally we have added new efficient C implementations of priority queues and the association of formulas with integers (to communicate with MiniSat). To measure the speedup given by the new parts of the implementation we have run Satallax 3.4 using flag settings that only use the basic calculus and Lash 1.0 using the same flag settings. We have also compared Lash to Satallax 3.4 using Satallax’s default strategy with a timeout of 10 s, and have found that Lash 1.0 outperforms Satallax with this short timeout even when Satallax is using the optional additions (including calling E). We describe the changes and present a number of examples for which the changes lead to a significant speedup.

2 Preliminaries

We will presume a familiarity with simple type theory and only give a quick description to make our use of notation clear, largely following [6]. We assume a set of base types, one of which is the type o of propositions (also called booleans), and the rest we refer to as sorts. We use $\alpha ,\beta$ to range over sorts and $\sigma ,\tau$ to range over types. The only types other than base types are function types $\sigma \tau$, which can be thought of as the type of functions from $\sigma$ to $\tau$.

All terms have a unique type and are inductively defined as (typed) variables, (typed) constants, well-typed applications (t s) and $\lambda$-abstractions $(\lambda x.t)$. We also include the logical constant $\bot$ as a term of type o, terms (of type o) of the form $(s\Rightarrow t)$ (implications) and $(\forall x.t)$ (universal quantifiers) where s, t have type o and terms (of type o) of the form $(s =_\sigma t)$ where s, t have a common type $\sigma$. We also include choice constants $\varepsilon _\sigma$ of $(\sigma o)\sigma$ at each type $\sigma$. We write $\lnot t$ for $t\Rightarrow \bot$ and $(s\not =_\sigma t)$ for $(s =_\sigma t \Rightarrow \bot )$. We omit type parentheses and type annotations except where they are needed for clarity. Terms of type o are also called propositions. We also use $\top$, $\vee , \wedge , \exists$ with the understanding that these are notations for equivalent propositions in the set of terms above.

We assume terms are equal if they are the same up to $\alpha$-conversion of bound variables (using de Bruijn indices in the implementation). We write [s] for the $\beta \eta$-normal form of s.

The tableau calculi of [6] (without choice) and [2] (with choice) define when a branch is refutable. A branch is a finite set of normal propositions. We let A range over branches and write A, s for the branch $A\cup \{s\}$. We will not give a full calculus, but will instead discuss a few of the rules with surprising properties. Before doing so we emphasize rules that are not in the calculus. There is no cut rule stating that if A, s and $A,\lnot s$ are refutable, then A is refutable. (During search such a rule would require synthesizing the cut formula s.) There is also no rule stating that if the branch $A,(s=t),[p s],[p t]$ is refutable, then $A,(s=t),[p s]$ is refutable (where s, t have type $\sigma$ and p is a term of type $\sigma o$). That is, there is no rule for rewriting into arbitrarily deep positions using equations.

All the tableau rules only need to examine the outer structure to test if they apply (when searching backwards for a refutation). When applying the rule, new formulas are constructed and added to the branch (or potentially multiple branches, each a subgoal to be refuted). An example is the confrontation rule, the only rule involving positive equations. The confrontation rule states that if $s=_\alpha t$ and $u\not =_\alpha v$ are on a branch A (where $\alpha$ is a sort), then we can refute A by refuting $A,s\not =u,t\not =u$ and $A,s\not =v,t\not =v$. A similar rule is the mating rule, which states that if $p s_1\ldots s_n$ and $\lnot p t_1\ldots t_n$ are on a branch A (where p is a constant of type $\sigma _1\cdots \sigma _n o$), then we can refute A by refuting each of the branches $A,s_i\not = t_i$ for each $i\in \{1,\ldots ,n\}$. The mating rule demonstrates how disequations can appear on a branch even if the original branch to refute contained no reference to equality at all. One way a branch can be closed is if $s\not =s$ is on the branch. In an implementation, this means an equality check is done for s and t whenever a disequation $s\not =t$ is added to the branch. In Satallax this requires Ocaml to traverse the terms. In Lash this only requires comparing the unique integer ids the implementation assigns to the terms.

The disequations generated on a branch play an important role. Terms (of sort $\alpha$) occuring on one side of a disequation on a branch are called discriminating terms. The rule for instantiating a quantified formula $\forall x.t$ (where x has sort $\alpha$) is restricted to instantiating with discriminating terms (or a default term if no terms of sort $\alpha$ are discriminating). During search in Satallax this means there is a finite set of permitted instantiations (at sort $\alpha$) and this set grows as disequations are produced. Note that, unlike most automated theorem provers, the instantiations do not arise from unification. In Satallax (and Lash) when $\forall x.t$ is being processed it is instantiated with all previously processed instantiations. When a new instantiation is produced, previously processed universally quantified propositions are instantiated with it. When $\forall x.t$ is instantiated with s, then $[(\lambda x.t) s]$ is added to the branch. Such an instantiation is the important case where the new formula involves term traversals: both for substitution and normalization. In Satallax the substitution and normalization require multiple term traversals. In Lash we have used normalizing substitutions and memorized previous computations, minimizing the number of term traversals. The need to instantiate arises when processing either a universally quantified proposition (giving a new quantifier to instantiate) or a disequation at a sort (giving new discriminating terms).

We discuss a small example both Satallax and Lash can easily prove. We briefly describe what both do in order to give the flavor of the procedure and (hopefully) prevent readers from assuming the provers behave too similarly from readers based on other calculi (e.g., resolution).

Example SEV241^5 from TPTP v7.5.0 [9] (X5201A from Tps [1]) contains a minor amount of features going beyond first-order logic. The statement to prove is

$$\forall x. U~x \wedge W~x \Rightarrow \forall S. (S = U \vee S = W) \Rightarrow S x.$$

Here U and W are constants of type $\alpha o$, x is a variable of type $\alpha$ and S is a variable of type $\alpha o$. The higher-order aspects of this problem are the quantifier for S (though this could be circumvented by making S a constant like U and W) and the equations between predicates (though these could be circumvented by replacing $S = U$ by $\forall y. S y \Leftrightarrow U y$ and replacing $S = W$ similarly). The tableau rules effectively do both during search.

Satallax never clausifies. The formula above is negated and assumed. We will informally describe tableau rules as splitting the problem into subgoals, though this is technically mediated through MiniSat (where the set of MiniSat clauses is unsatisfiable when all branches are closed). Tableau rules are applied until the problem involves a constant c (for x), a constant $S'$ for S and assumptions U c, W c, $S' = U \vee S' = W$ and $\lnot S' c$ on the branch. The disjunction is internally $S'\not = U \Rightarrow S' = W$ and the implication rule splits the problem into two branches, one with $S' = U$ and one with $S' = W$. Both branches are solved in analogous ways and we only describe the $S'=U$ branch. Since $S'=U$ is an equation at function type, the relevant rule adds $\forall y.S' y = U y$ to the branch. Since there are no disequations on the branch, there is no instantiation available for $\forall y.S' y = U y$. In such a case, a default instantiation is created and used. That is, a default constant d (of sort $\alpha$) is generated and we instantiate with this d, giving $S' d =_o U d$. The rule for equations at type o splits into two subgoals: one branch with $S' d$ and Ud and another with $\lnot S' d$ and $\lnot U d$. On the first branch we mate $S' d$ with $\lnot S' c$ adding the disequation $d\not = c$ to the branch. This makes c available as an instantiation for $\forall y.S' y = U y$. After instantiating with c the rest of the subcase is straightforward. In the other subgoal we mate U c with $\lnot U d$ giving the disequation $c\not = d$. Again, c becomes available as an instantiation and the rest of the subcase is straightforward.

3 Terms with Perfect Sharing

Lash represents normal terms as C structures, with a unique integer id assigned to each term. The structure contains a tag indicating which kind of term is represented, a number that is used to either indicate the de Bruijn index (for a variable), the name (for a constant), or the type (for a $\lambda$-abstraction, a universal quantifier, a choice operator, or an equation). Two pointers (optionally) point to relevant subterms in each case. In addition the structure maintains the information of which de Bruijn indices are free in the term (with de Bruijn indices limited to a maximum of 255). Knowing the free de Bruijn indices of terms makes recognizing potential $\eta$-redexes possible without traversing the $\lambda$-abstraction. Likewise it is possible to determine when shifting and substitution of de Bruijn indices would not affect a term, avoiding the need to traverse the term.

In Ocaml only the unique integer id is directly revealed and this is sufficient to test for equality of terms. Hash tables are used to uniquely assign types to integers and strings (for names) to integers and these integers are used to interface with the C code. Various functions are used in the Ocaml-C interface to request the construction of (normal) terms. For example, given the two Ocaml integer ids i and j corresponding to terms s and t, the function mk_norm_ap given i and j will return an integer k corresponding to the normal term [s t]. The C implementation recognizes if s is a $\lambda$-abstraction and performs all $\beta \eta$-reductions to obtain a normal term. Additionally, the C implementation treats terms as graphs with perfect sharing, and additionally caches previous operations (including substitutions and de Bruijn shifting) to prevent recomputation.

In addition to the low-level C term reimplementation, we have also provided a number of other low-level functionalities replacing the slower parts of the Ocaml code. This includes low-level priority queues, as well as C code used to associate the integers representing normal propositions with integers that are used to communicate with MiniSat. The MiniSat integers are nonzero and satisfy the property that minus on integers corresponds to negation of propositions.

4 Results and Examples

The first mode in the default schedule for Satallax 3.1 is mode213. This mode activates one feature that goes beyond the basic calculus: pattern clauses. Additionally the mode sets a flag that tries to split the initial goal into several independent subgoals before beginning the search proper. Through experimentation we have found that setting a flag (common to both Satallax and Lash) to essentially prevent MiniSat from searching (i.e., only using MiniSat to recognize contradictions that are evident without search) often improves the performance. We have created a modified mode mode213d that deactivates these additions (and delays the use of MiniSat) so that Satallax and Lash will have a similar (and often the same) search space. (Sometimes the search spaces differ due to differences in the way Satallax and Lash enumerate instantiations for function types, an issue we will not focus on here.) We have also run Lash with many variants of Satallax modes with similar modifications. From such test runs we have created a 10 s schedule consisting of 5 modes.

To give a general comparison of Satallax and Lash we have run both on 2053 TH0 problems from a recent release of the TPTP [9] (7.5.0). We initially selected all problems with TPTP status of Theorem or Unsatisfiable (so they should be provable in principle) without polymorphism (or similar extensions of TH0). We additionally removed a few problems that could not be parsed by Satallax 3.4 and removed a few hundred problems big enough to activate SINE in Satallax 3.4.

We ran Lash for 10 s with its default schedule over this problem set. For comparison, we have run Satallax 3.4 for 10 s in three different ways: using the Lash schedule (since the flag settings make sense for both systems) and using Satallax 3.4’s default schedule both with and without access to E [12]. The results are reported in Table 1. It is already promising that Lash has the ability to slightly outperform Satallax even when Satallax is allowed to call E.

Table 1. Lash vs. Satallax on 2053 TH0 Problems.

To get a clearer view of the improvement we discuss a few specific examples.

TPTP problem NUM638^1 (part of Theorem 3 from the Automath formalization of Landau’s book) is about the natural numbers (starting from 1). The problem assumes a successor function s is injective and that every number other than 1 has a predecessor. An abstract notion of existence is used by having a constant ${\mathsf {some}}$ of type $(\iota o)o$ about which no extra assumptions are made, so the assumption is formally $\forall x. x\not = 1 \Rightarrow {\mathsf {some}} (\lambda u. x = s u)$. For a fixed n, $n\not =1$ is assumed and the conjecture to prove is the negation of the implication $(\forall x y.n=s x \Rightarrow n=s y \Rightarrow x = y)\Rightarrow \lnot (\mathsf {some} (\lambda u. n = s u))$. The implication is assumed and the search must rule out the negation of the antecedent (i.e., that n has two predecessors) and the succedent (that n has no predecessor). Satallax and Lash both take 3911 steps to prove this example. With mode213d, Lash completes the search in 0.4 s while Satallax requires almost 29 s.

TPTP problem SEV108^5 (SIX_THEOREM from Tps [1]) corresponds to proving the Ramsey number R(3,3) is at most 6. The problem assumes there is a symmetric binary relation R (the edge relation of a graph with the sort as vertices) and there are (at least) 6 distinct elements. The conclusion is that there are either 3 distinct elements all of which are R-related or 3 distinct elements none of which are R-related. Satallax and Lash can solve the problem in 14129 steps with mode mode213d. Satallax proves the theorem in 0.153 s while Lash proves the theorem in the same number of steps but in 0.046 s.

The difference is more impressive if we consider the modified problem of proving R(3, 4) is at most 9. That is, we assume there are (at least) 9 distinct elements and modify the second disjunct of the conclusion to be that there are 4 distinct elements none of which are R-related. Satallax and Lash both use 186127 steps to find the proof. For Satallax this takes 44 s while for Lash this takes 5.5 s.

The TPTP problem SYO506^1 is about an if-then-else operator. The problem has a constant c of type $o\iota \iota \iota$. Instead of giving axioms indicating c behaves as an if-then-else operator, the conjecture is given as a disjunction:

$$(\forall x y.c~(x=y)~x~y~=~y) \vee \lnot (\forall x y.c~\top ~x~y~=~x)\vee \lnot (\forall x y.c~\bot ~x~y~=~y).$$

After negating the conjecture and applying the first few tableau rules the branch will contain the propositions $\forall x y.c~\top ~x~y~=~x$, $\forall x y.c~\bot ~x~y~=~y$ and the disequation $c~(d=e)~d~e\not = e$ for fresh d and e of type $\iota$. In principle the rules for if-then-else given in [2] could be used to solve the problem without using the universally quantified formulas (other than to justify that c is an if-then-else operator). However, these are not implemented in Satallax or Lash. Instead search proceeds as usual via the basic underlying procedure. Both Satallax and Lash can prove the example using modes mode0c1 in 32704 steps. Satallax performs the search in 9.8 s while Lash completes the search in 0.2 s.

In addition to the examples considered above, we have constructed a family of examples intended to demonstrate the power of the shared term representation and caching of operations. Let ${\mathsf {cons}}$ have type $\iota \iota \iota$ and ${\mathsf {nil}}$ have type $\iota$. For each natural number n, consider the proposition $C^n$ given by

$$\overline{n}~(\lambda x.{\mathsf {cons}}~x~x)~({\mathsf {cons}}~{\mathsf {nil}}~{\mathsf {nil}}) = {\mathsf {cons}}~(\overline{n}~(\lambda x.{\mathsf {cons}}~x~x)~{\mathsf {nil}})~(\overline{n}~(\lambda x.{\mathsf {cons}}~x~x)~{\mathsf {nil}})$$

where $\overline{n}$ is the appropriately typed Church numeral. Proving the proposition $C^n$ does not require any search and merely requires the prover to normalize the conjecture and note the two sides have the same normal form. However, this normal form on both sides will be a complete binary tree of depth $n+1$. We have run Lash and Satallax on $C^{n}$ with $n\in \{20,21,22,23,24\}$ using mode mode213d. Lash solves all five problems in the same amount of time, less than 0.02 s for each. Satallax takes 4 s, 8 s, 16 s, 32 s and 64 s. As expected, since Satallax is not using a shared representation, the computation time exponentially increases with respect to n.

5 Conclusion and Future Work

We have used Lash as a vehicle to demonstrate that giving a more efficient implementation of the underlying tableau calculus of Satallax can lead to significant performance improvements. An obvious possible extension of Lash would be to implement pattern clauses, higher-order unification and the ability to call E. While we may do this, our current plans are to focus on directions that further diverge from the development path followed by Satallax.

Interesting theoretical work would be to modify the underlying calculus (while maintaining completeness). For example the rules of the calculus might be able to be further restricted based on orderings of ground terms. On the other hand, new rules might be added to support a variety of constants with special properties. This was already done for constants that satisfy axioms indicating the constant is a choice, description or if-then-else operator [2]. Suppose a constant r of type $\iota \iota o$ is known to be reflexive due to a formula $\forall x.r~x~x$ being on the branch. One could avoid ever instantiating this universally quantified formula by simply including a tableau rule that extends a branch with $s\not = t$ whenever $\lnot r~s~t$ is on the branch. Similar rules could operationalize other special cases of universally quantified formulas, e.g., formulas giving symmetry or transitivity of a relation. A modification of the usual completeness proof would be required to prove completeness of the calculus with these additional rules (and with the restriction disallowing instantiating the corresponding universally quantified formulas).

Finally the C representation of terms could be extended to include precomputed special features. Just as the current implementation knows which de Bruijns are free in the term (without traversing the term), a future implementation could know other features of the term without requiring traversal. Such features could be used to guide the search.