I'm using Isabelle/HOL, trying to prove a statement Q. On the way to proving Q, I have proven the existence of a natural number that satisfies P::"nat=>bool". How can I create an instance x::nat that satisfies P, so that I can reference it in subsequent lemmas?
Inside any given lemma, I can do it using the obtains command. I want to reference the same witness instance in a number of different lemmas, however, so I need a way to do it outside of any lemma. I tried to use fix/assume inside a new locale, as shown below:
locale outerlocale
fixes a b c ...
begin
definition Q::bool where ...
lemma existence: "EX x. P x"
proof -
...
qed
locale innerlocale = outerlocale +
fixes x::nat
assumes "P x"
begin
(*lots of lemmas that reference x*)
lemma innerlemma0
...
lemma innerlemma7
proof -
...
qed
lemma finalinnerlemma: "Q"
proof -
...
...
qed
end (*innerlocale*)
lemma outerlemma: "Q"
proof -
(*I don't know what goes here*)
qed
end (*outerlocale)
Unfortunately this just kicks the can down the road. I need a way to use the existence lemma to extract the final inner lemma into the outer locale. If I try to interpret the inner locale, I'm once again up against the problem of supplying a witness. I can't interpret locales inside lemmas (unless I'm misunderstanding the error I get), and I can't use obtain outside of lemmas, so I'm stuck.
So it looks I need to figure out either
- how to specify a witness instance outside a lemma or
- how to extract a lemma from a locale by proving that locale's assumptions
Or is there a better way to do what I'm trying to do? Thanks!
