You could write

  HD ([]:’a list) = @x:’a. T

or, equivalently, HD [] = ARB.

Michael

From: "buday.gerg...@uni-eszterhazy.hu" <buday.gerg...@uni-eszterhazy.hu>
Date: Friday, 15 February 2019 at 15:34
To: hol-info <hol-info@lists.sourceforge.net>, "Norrish, Michael (Data61, 
Acton)" <michael.norr...@data61.csiro.au>
Subject: Re: [Hol-info] 0 / 0 = 0 ???

Is HD [] at all possible to define? For some fixed list type yes but in general 
for [] : 'a list ?
- Gergely
Az Android Outlook<https://aka.ms/ghei36> letöltése



On Fri, Feb 15, 2019 at 12:00 AM +0100, 
<michael.norr...@data61.csiro.au<mailto:michael.norr...@data61.csiro.au>> wrote:
The author of LENGTH_TL probably didn’t have access to the updated definition 
of TL.  Once upon a time, the philosophy was to keep more things unspecified so 
that one could not know which list TL [] denoted.  I assume, not having looked 
into the relevant history, that LENGTH_TL dates back to that earlier period.  
In that vein, natural number division does not define what x DIV 0 might happen 
to be at all.

Pleasantly, the feature of starting out with things unspecified is that it is 
sound to later specify exactly what the border cases might be.  TAKE, DROP and 
ZIP have also picked up defined values for what were unspecified cases 
relatively recently.  (These functions all map into ranges where halfway 
reasonable defaults seem to exist.  It’s harder to imagine what HD [] should 
be. )

Michael

From: Thomas Sewell <sew...@chalmers.se>
Date: Friday, 15 February 2019 at 04:15
To: "Chun Tian (binghe)" <binghe.l...@gmail.com>, hol-info 
<hol-info@lists.sourceforge.net>
Subject: Re: [Hol-info] 0 / 0 = 0 ???


This is one of the most common questions about HOL.



HOL is a logic of total functions. There are some expressions, like division by 
zero and the head of an empty list, which we often intuitively think of as 
special exceptional values. But HOL's type system doesn't have special 
exceptional values, so ``HD []`` and ``0 \ 0`` have to be values of the correct 
type.



We could choose to define HD and the division operator so that it was not 
possible to prove what these unusual values are. But that doesn't mean quite 
the same thing as an exception. For instance, however HD and division were 
defined, we can still prove equalities about them:

``HD [] + (0 / 0) - HD [] - (0 / 0) = 0``.



Since we have to have normal values, it's often convenient to pick sensible 
defaults, since they make some theorems true without side conditions. For 
instance, we pick that "0 - 1 = 0" in numerals, and "TL [] = []", which happens 
to make "LENGTH (TL xs) = (LENGTH xs - 1)" unconditionally true. Curiously, in 
HOL4, the author of the LENGTH_TL theorem didn't seem to realise that.



If this bothers you a lot, you can consider the HOL ``x \ y`` expression to map 
to the expression "if x = 0 then 0 else (x \ y)" in whatever your intuitive 
logic is.



Cheers,

    Thomas.





Cheers,

    Thomas.





________________________________
From: Chun Tian (binghe) <binghe.l...@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2019 5:40:36 PM
To: HOL
Subject: [Hol-info] 0 / 0 = 0 ???

Hi,

in HOL's realTheory, division is defined by multiplication:

[real_div]  Definition

      ⊢ ∀x y. x / y = x * y⁻¹

and zero multiplies any other real number equals to zero, which is
definitely true:

   [REAL_MUL_LZERO]  Theorem

      ⊢ ∀x. 0 * x = 0

However, above two theorems together gives ``0 / 0 = 0``, as shown below:

> REWRITE_RULE [REAL_MUL_LZERO] (Q.SPECL [`0`, `0`] real_div);
val it = ⊢ 0 / 0 = 0: thm

How do I understand this result? Is there anything "wrong"?

(The same problems happens also in extrealTheory, since the definition
of `*` finally reduces to `*` of real numbers)

Regards,

Chun Tian
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