This paper introduces a propositional encoding for recursive path orders (RPO), in connection with dependency pairs. Hence, we capture in a uniform setting all common instances of RPO, i.e., lexicographic path orders (LPO), multiset path orders (MPO), and lexicographic path orders with status (LPOS). This facilitates the application of SAT solvers for termination analysis of term rewrite systems (TRSs). We address four main inter-related issues and show how to encode them as satisfiability problems of propositional formulas that can be efficiently handled by SAT solving: (A) the lexicographic comparison w.r.t. a permutation of the arguments; (B) the multiset extension of a base order; (C) the combined search for a path order together with an argument filter to orient a set of inequalities; and (D) how the choice of the argument filter influences the set of inequalities that have to be oriented (so-called usable rules). We have implemented our contributions in the termination prover AProVE. Extensive experiments show that by our encoding and the application of SAT solvers one obtains speedups in orders of magnitude as well as increased termination proving power.

c t i v it y e p o r t 2009 Table of contents

Abstract Enjoying the power of SAT and SMT solvers in the Coq proof assistant without compromising soundness requires more than a yes/no answer from them. SAT and SMT solvers should also return a proof witness that can be checked by an external tool. We propose a fully certified checker for such witnesses written in Coq. It can currently check witnesses from the SAT solvers ZChaff and MiniSat and from the SMT solver VeriT. Experiments highlight the efficiency of this checker. On top of it, new reflexive Coq tactics have been built that can decide a subset of Coq’s logic by calling external provers and carefully checking their answers. 1