NAME
mace4 - searches for finite countermodels of first-order statements
SYNOPSIS
mace4 [options] < input-file > output-file
DESCRIPTION
This manual page documents briefly the mace4 command.
The program mace4 searches for finite structures satisfying first-order
and equational statements, the same kind of statement that prover9(1)
accepts. If the statement is the denial of some conjecture, any
structures found by mace4 are counterexamples to the conjecture. mace4
can be a valuable complement to prover9(1), looking for counterexamples
before (or at the same time as) using prover9(1) to search for a proof.
It can also be used to help debug input clauses and formulas for
prover9(1).
OPTIONS
A summary of options is included below. Options override the
equivalent settings given in the input file. To set or clear a flag,
you must give 1 or 0 as the value.
-help This tells mace4 to print a summary of these command-line
options.
-n n This gives the starting domain size for the search. The default
value is 2. If you also give an -N option, mace4 will iterate
domain sizes up through the -N value, using an increment given
by the -I value. Otherwise, mace4 will search only for the -n
value.
-N n This gives the ending domain size for the search. The default is
10.
-i n This gives the domain size increment for the search. The default
is 1.
-q n This flag overrides the parameter iterate. It says to try the
sizes that are prime numbers, from -n up through -N.
-m n Stop searching when the nth structure has been found. The
default is 1.
-t n Stop searching after n seconds.
-s n Allow at most n seconds for each domain size. The parameter can
be used (together with -t) to give an overall time limit.
-b n Stop searching when (about) n megabytes of memory have been
used.
-V n A rule is needed for distinguishing variables from constants in
clauses and formulas with free variables. If this flag is clear,
variables start with (lower case) ‘u’ through ‘z’. If this flag
is set, variables in clauses start with (upper case) ‘A’ through
‘Z’ or ‘_’.
-P n If this flag is set, all structures that are found are printed
in ‘standard’ form, which means they are suitable as input to
other LADR programs such as isofilter(1) and interpformat(1).
-p n If this flag is set, and if -P is clear, all structures that are
found are printed in a tabular form.
-R n If this flag is set, a ring structure is is applied to the
search. The operations {+,-,*} are assumed to be the ring of
integers (mod domain_size). This method puts a tight constraint
on the search, allowing much larger structures to be
investigated.
-v n If this flag is set, the output file receives information about
the search, including the initial partial model (the part of the
model that can be determined before backtracking starts) and
timing and other statistics for each domain size. (It does not
give a trace of the backtracking, so it does not consume a lot
of file space.)
-T n If the trace flag is set, detailed information about the search,
including a trace of all assignments and backtracking, is
printed to the standard output. This flag causes a lot of
output, so it should be used only on small searches.
There also exist a number of advanced options, which are used for
experimentation with search methods. They can be ignored by nearly all
users. For descriptions of these options, see the original mace4
manual.
SEE ALSO
prover9(1).
Full documentation for mace4 is found in the prover9 manual, available
on Debian systems in the prover9-doc package at
/usr/share/doc/prover9-doc/manual/index.html.
The original mace4 manual, which can be downloaded at
http://www.cs.unm.edu/~mccune/prover9/mace4.pdf
AUTHOR
mace4 was written by William McCune <mccune@cs.unm.edu>
This manual page was written by Peter Collingbourne <peter@pcc.me.uk>,
for the Debian project (but may be used by others).
August 12, 2007