mjustus / freshtt

A type checker for FreshMLTT, a dependent type theory with abstractable names together with an equational characterisation of freshness.

freshtt

A type checker for FreshMLTT, a dependent type theory with abstractable names together with an equational characterisation of freshness inspired by the corresponding notion in Nominal Sets.

Usage

freshtt FILE

Syntax

A file consists of a semicolon-separated list of definitions

DEF_1;
...  ;
DEF_n

where each definition DEFi consists of a name (that later definitions can refer to) a type and a body (of that type):

ID : TERM = TERM

There's no syntactic distinction between types and terms. Terms are formed as follows

• local definitions

    let ID : TERM = TERM in TERM
  

• cumulative hierarchy of universes

    U n
  

  where n is an integer

• universe of name sorts

    N
  

• simple and dependent function types

    TERM -> TERM
    (ID1, ..., IDn : TERM) -> TERM
  

  The arrow -> can be replaced by the unicode right arrow character, →.

• simple and dependent name abstraction types

    [ID1, ..., IDn : TERM] -> TERM
    [TERM] TERM
  

• function abstraction (domain-free)

    \ID1 ... IDn. TERM
    λID1 ... IDn. TERM
  

• name abstraction (domain-free)

    !ID1 ... IDn. TERM
    αID1 ... IDn. TERM
  

• local name abstraction (domain-full)

    ?ID : TERM. TERM
    νID : TERM. TERM
  

• function application

    TERM TERM
  

• concretion

    TERM @ ID
  

• name swapping

    swap ID ID in TERM
  

• type annotation

    TERM :: TERM
  

Some syntactic sugar:

• Telescopic type syntax: consecutive dependent function and name abstractions can be written without a separating arrow (->), i.e. instead of

    (ID : TERM) -> [ID : TERM] -> ...
  

  we can write

    (ID : TERM) [ID : TERM] -> ...
  

Hacking

• parser.mly: parser for freshtt programs
• raw.ml: abstract syntax close to concrete syntax and a pretty-printer
• term.ml: internal syntax (note that Fun and Nab are non-binding!)
• eval.ml and readback.ml: NbE-style normalisation procedure. In particular, eval performs weak-head normalisation and rb_nf eta expands and reduction under alpha- and lambda-abstractions.
• model.ml: values in the NbE model. Alpha- and lambda-abstractions are represented by Term.t closures.
• normal.ml: normal forms
• check.ml: bidirectional type checker

References

1. A. Abel, Normalization by Evaluation: Dependent Types and Impredicativity.
2. T. Coquand, An algorithm for type-checking dependent types.
3. M. J. Gabbay, A. M. Pitts, A New Approach to Abstract Syntax with Variable Binding.
4. A. M. Pitts, J. Matthiesen and J. Derikx, A Dependent Type Theory with Abstractable Names.