RFC: Mutual structural recursion to support non-matching functions
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Description
Prerequisites
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- Check that your issue is not already filed:
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Description
Mutually recursive functions cannot use structural recursion when one of the functions does not match on the inductive type.
Steps to Reproduce
mutual
def foo : Nat → Nat
| 0 => 0
| n + 1 => bar n
termination_by structural n => n
def bar (n : Nat) : Nat :=
foo n + 1
end
Expected behavior: Code succeeds with no errors.
Actual behavior: The following error:
error: failed to infer structural recursion:
Cannot use parameters #1 of foo and n of bar:
failed to eliminate recursive application
foo n
Versions
Lean 4.19.0-rc2
Impact
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Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start by running the minimal mutual-recursion example from the issue against the stated Lean 4.19.0-rc2 version and confirm the structural-recursion error. Investigate the structural recursion handling for mutually recursive definitions; done means the example compiles successfully without the reported error.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Domain
- compilers
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 5/5
- Estimated time
- Over a week
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 30/100