PVS Survival Information

If you make a new discovery or have an insight about using PVS, please send me a message about it. I will maintain a list of useful facts for everone's reference. The initial list below is extracted from Ricky W. Butler's "PVS Survival Hints". Check this page from time to time to see if new wisdom has been added.

Interrupting the prover

You should read Section 3.32 of the PVS system guide available from the exercise directory of the home page.

If you think the prover has gotten lost, or that you've asked it to do too much, you can type C-c C-c while in the *pvs* buffer. This will bring you to Lisp's top level where you will see:

   Error: Received signal number 2 (Keyboard interrupt)
     [condition type: INTERRUPT-SIGNAL]

   Restart actions (select using :continue):
    0: continue computation
   [1c] 
At the <rcl> prompt type (restore) to get back to the previous sequent.

Resetting the prover

If you type M-x reset-pvs while your cursor is in the *pvs* buffer it interrupts the prover, as above. If you are positioned in another buffer, current and pending PVS commands are aborted.

Managing proofs

Corresponding to each .pvs file is a .prf file that holds all the proofs you have done. If you want to see the stored proof, place your purpose on its theorem statement and type M-x edit-proof. This will open a buffer containing the Lisp representation of the proof. It looks something like this:

("" (SKOSIMP*)
    (EXPAND "whatever")
    (LIFT-IF)
    (EXPAND "nonesuch")
    (PROPAX))
If you're a real risk taker, you can change the proof and save the result by typing C-C C-i in the Proof buffer.

Stepping through a proof

You can setp through a proof one command at a time by issuing either the command M-x step-proof or the command M-x x-step-proof. The latter also displays a proof tree.

The PVS window is split into two parts, a buffer named Proof containing the proof script, and the *pvs* buffer showing the proof in progress.

The command TAB 1 executes one proof step. The command ESC n TAB 1 executes n proof steps.

Repositioning the cursor in the Proofwindow affects which step will be executed next. Therefore, use C-x o to switch between bufferes rather than using mouse clicks.

Hidden formulas

The PVS prover command (hide f) removes formula number f from the sequent. This helps reduce clutter. The command M-x show-hidden-formulas opens a buffer named Hidden displaying all the hidden formulas. The PVS prover command (reveal f) returns the formula numbered f in Hidden to the sequent.

Making cosmetic changes

If you want to change the names of variables, formulas, and the like. You must be careful to do it everywhere. A procedure for doing this is (caution: needs to be tried):
  1. Create a top.pvs file that imports directly or indirectly all of the theories you are working on.
  2. Issue the M-x dump-pvs-files command in your top.pvs theory.
  3. Make your changes to this dump file (using global match and replace commands, when possible, so you don't miss anything) and save the result.
  4. (optional) Issue the Unix command rm *.bin in your directory. This shouldn't be necessary, but there have been problems in the past. If you are the adventureous type, skip this step.
  5. In PVS, issue the M-x undump-pvs-files command.
  6. Enter top.pvs and re-typecheck.
The top.pvs theory is a good place to issue M-x prove-inportchain to reprove everything.