import MyNat.Definition

Tactic cases

cases is similar to induction only it drops the inductive hypothesis.

Assuming x is a variable in the local context with an inductive type, cases x splits the main goal, producing one goal for each constructor of the inductive type, in which the target is replaced by a general instance of that constructor. If the type of an element in the local context depends on x, that element is reverted and reintroduced afterward, so that the case split affects that hypothesis as well. cases detects unreachable cases and closes them automatically.

For example, given n : Nat and a goal with a hypothesis h : P n and target Q n, cases n produces one goal with hypothesis h : P 0 and target Q 0, and one goal with hypothesis h : P (Nat.succ a) and target Q (Nat.succ a). Here the name a is chosen automatically and is not accessible. You can use with to provide the variables names for each constructor.

• cases e, where e is an expression instead of a variable, generalizes e in the goal, and then cases on the resulting variable.
• Given as : List α, cases as with | nil => tac₁ | cons a as' => tac₂, uses tactic tac₁ for the nil case, and tac₂ for the cons case, and a and as' are used as names for the new variables introduced.
• cases h : e, where e is a variable or an expression, performs cases on e as above, but also adds a hypothesis h : e = ... to each hypothesis, where ... is the constructor instance for that particular case.