CASES_THENL : (thm_tactic list -> thm_tactic)

SYNOPSIS

Applies the theorem-tactics in a list to corresponding disjuncts in a theorem.

DESCRIBE

When given a list of theorem-tactics [ttac1;...;ttacn] and a theorem whose conclusion is a top-level disjunction of n terms, CASES_THENL splits a goal into n subgoals resulting from applying to the original goal the result of applying the i'th theorem-tactic to the i'th disjunct. This can be represented as follows, where the number of existentially quantified variables in a disjunct may be zero. If the theorem th has the form:

   A' |- ?x11..x1m. t1 \/ ... \/ ?xn1..xnp. tn

where the number of existential quantifiers may be zero, and for all i from 1 to n:

     A ?- s
   ========== ttaci (|- ti[xi1'/xi1]..[xim'/xim])
    Ai ?- si

where the primed variables have the same type as their unprimed counterparts, then:

             A ?- s
   =========================  CASES_THENL [ttac1;...;ttacn] th
    A1 ?- s1  ...  An ?- sn

Unless A' is a subset of A, this is an invalid tactic.

FAILURE

Fails if the given theorem does not, at the top level, have the same number of (possibly multiply existentially quantified) disjuncts as the length of the theorem-tactic list (this includes the case where the theorem-tactic list is empty), or if any of the tactics generated as specified above fail when applied to the goal.

USES

Performing very general disjunctive case splits.

SEEALSO  DISJ_CASES_THENL,   X_CASES_THENL