module Data.Nat.Base where
Natural numbers🔗
The natural numbers are the inductive type generated by zero
and closed under taking
suc
cessors. Thus, they
satisfy the following induction principle, which is familiar:
Nat-elim : ∀ {ℓ} (P : Nat → Type ℓ) → P 0 → ({n : Nat} → P n → P (suc n)) → (n : Nat) → P n Nat-elim P pz ps zero = pz Nat-elim P pz ps (suc n) = ps (Nat-elim P pz ps n) iter : ∀ {ℓ} {A : Type ℓ} → Nat → (A → A) → A → A iter zero f = id iter (suc n) f = f ∘ iter n f
Translating from type theoretic notation to mathematical English, the
type of Nat-elim
says that if a predicate P
holds of zero
, and the truth of
P(suc n)
follows from P(n)
, then
P
is true for every natural number.
Discreteness🔗
An interesting property of the natural numbers, type-theoretically,
is that they are discrete
: given
any pair of natural numbers, there is an algorithm that can tell you
whether or not they are equal. First, observe that we can distinguish
zero from
successor:
zero≠suc : {n : Nat} → ¬ zero ≡ suc n zero≠suc path = subst distinguish path tt where distinguish : Nat → Type distinguish zero = ⊤ distinguish (suc x) = ⊥
The idea behind this proof is that we can write a predicate which is
true
for zero, and false
for any successor.
Since we know that ⊤
is
inhabited (by tt
), we can transport that
along the claimed path to get an inhabitant of ⊥
, i.e., a
contradiction.
pred : Nat → Nat pred 0 = 0 pred (suc n) = n suc-inj : {x y : Nat} → suc x ≡ suc y → x ≡ y suc-inj = ap pred
Furthermore, observe that the successor
operation is injective, i.e.,
we can “cancel” it on paths. Putting these together, we get a proof that
equality for the natural numbers is decidable:
Discrete-Nat : Discrete Nat Discrete-Nat {zero} {zero} = yes refl Discrete-Nat {zero} {suc y} = no λ zero≡suc → absurd (zero≠suc zero≡suc) Discrete-Nat {suc x} {zero} = no λ suc≡zero → absurd (suc≠zero suc≡zero) Discrete-Nat {suc x} {suc y} with Discrete-Nat {x} {y} ... | yes x≡y = yes (ap suc x≡y) ... | no ¬x≡y = no λ sucx≡sucy → ¬x≡y (suc-inj sucx≡sucy)
abstract from-prim-eq : ∀ {x y} → So (x == y) → x ≡ y from-prim-eq {zero} {zero} p = refl from-prim-eq {suc x} {suc y} p = ap suc (from-prim-eq p) from-prim-eq-refl : ∀ {x p} → from-prim-eq {x} {x} p ≡ refl from-prim-eq-refl {zero} = refl from-prim-eq-refl {suc x} = ap (ap suc) (from-prim-eq-refl {x}) {-# REWRITE from-prim-eq-refl #-} to-prim-eq : ∀ {x y} → x ≡ y → So (x == y) to-prim-eq {zero} {zero} p = oh to-prim-eq {zero} {suc y} p = absurd (zero≠suc p) to-prim-eq {suc x} {zero} p = absurd (suc≠zero p) to-prim-eq {suc x} {suc y} p = to-prim-eq (suc-inj p) instance Discrete-Nat : Discrete Nat Discrete-Nat {x} {y} with oh? (x == y) ... | yes p = yes (from-prim-eq p) ... | no ¬p = no (¬p ∘ to-prim-eq)
Hedberg’s theorem implies
that Nat
is a set, i.e., it only has
trivial paths.
opaque Nat-is-set : is-set Nat Nat-is-set = Discrete→is-set Discrete-Nat instance H-Level-Nat : ∀ {n} → H-Level Nat (2 + n) H-Level-Nat = basic-instance 2 Nat-is-set
Arithmetic🔗
Heads up! The arithmetic properties of operations on
the natural numbers are in the module Data.Nat.Properties
.
Agda already comes with definitions for addition and multiplication of natural numbers. They are reproduced below, using different names, for the sake of completeness:
plus : Nat → Nat → Nat plus zero y = y plus (suc x) y = suc (plus x y) times : Nat → Nat → Nat times zero y = zero times (suc x) y = y + times x y
These match up with the built-in definitions of _+_
and _*_
:
plus≡+ : plus ≡ _+_ plus≡+ i zero y = y plus≡+ i (suc x) y = suc (plus≡+ i x y) times≡* : times ≡ _*_ times≡* i zero y = zero times≡* i (suc x) y = y + (times≡* i x y)
The exponentiation operator ^
is defined by recursion
on the exponent.
_^_ : Nat → Nat → Nat x ^ zero = 1 x ^ suc y = x * (x ^ y) infixr 10 _^_
Ordering🔗
We define the order relation _≤_
on the natural numbers
as an inductive predicate. We could also define the relation by
recursion on the numbers to be compared, but the inductive version has
much better properties when it comes to type inference.
data _≤_ : Nat → Nat → Type where instance 0≤x : ∀ {x} → 0 ≤ x s≤s : ∀ {x y} → x ≤ y → suc x ≤ suc y
instance s≤s' : ∀ {x y} → ⦃ x ≤ y ⦄ → suc x ≤ suc y s≤s' ⦃ x ⦄ = s≤s x x≤x : ∀ {x} → x ≤ x x≤x {zero} = 0≤x x≤x {suc x} = s≤s x≤x x≤sucy : ∀ {x y} ⦃ p : x ≤ y ⦄ → x ≤ suc y x≤sucy {.0} {y} ⦃ 0≤x ⦄ = 0≤x x≤sucy {.(suc _)} {.(suc _)} ⦃ s≤s p ⦄ = s≤s (x≤sucy ⦃ p ⦄) {-# INCOHERENT x≤x x≤sucy #-} ≤-peel : ∀ {x y : Nat} → suc x ≤ suc y → x ≤ y ≤-peel (s≤s p) = p ¬suc≤0 : ∀ {x} → suc x ≤ 0 → ⊥ ¬suc≤0 () ≤-trans : ∀ {x y z} → x ≤ y → y ≤ z → x ≤ z ≤-trans 0≤x 0≤x = 0≤x ≤-trans 0≤x (s≤s q) = 0≤x ≤-trans (s≤s p) (s≤s q) = s≤s (≤-trans p q) factorial : Nat → Nat factorial zero = 1 factorial (suc n) = suc n * factorial n Positive : Nat → Type Positive n = 1 ≤ n
We define the strict ordering on Nat
as well, re-using the
definition of _≤_
.
_<_ : Nat → Nat → Type m < n = suc m ≤ n infix 7 _<_ _≤_
≤-sucr : ∀ {x y : Nat} → x ≤ y → x ≤ suc y ≤-sucr 0≤x = 0≤x ≤-sucr (s≤s p) = s≤s (≤-sucr p) <-weaken : ∀ {x y} → x < y → x ≤ y <-weaken {x} {suc y} p = ≤-sucr (≤-peel p)
As an “ordering combinator”, we can define the maximum of two natural numbers by recursion: The maximum of zero and a successor (on either side) is the successor, and the maximum of successors is the successor of their maximum.
max : Nat → Nat → Nat max zero zero = zero max zero (suc y) = suc y max (suc x) zero = suc x max (suc x) (suc y) = suc (max x y)
Similarly, we can define the minimum of two numbers:
min : Nat → Nat → Nat min zero zero = zero min zero (suc y) = zero min (suc x) zero = zero min (suc x) (suc y) = suc (min x y)