Querying proofs

Abstract

We motivate and introduce a query language PrQL designed for inspecting machine representations of proofs. PrQL natively supports hiproofs which express proof structure using hierarchical nested labelled trees. The core language presented in this paper is locally structured, with queries built using recursion and patterns over proof structure and rule names. We define the syntax and semantics of locally structured queries, demonstrate their power, and sketch some implementation experiments. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.