stalmarck

Stålmarck's proof procedure for propositional logic, in Rust.

Overview

Stålmarck's method decides whether a propositional formula is satisfiable, or valid, by reasoning about equivalences between subformulas instead of searching assignments. It works in three steps.

1. Triples. The formula is decomposed into triples x ↔ (a ∧ b) and x ↔ (a ↔ b) over literals. Identical subformulas are shared.
2. 0-saturation. A formula relation, which records equivalences between literals, is extended with every equivalence that one triple entails. This repeats until nothing changes or a contradiction appears.
3. The Dilemma rule. The procedure assumes a node is ⊥, saturates, assumes it is ⊤, saturates, and keeps only the equivalences both branches agree on. Nesting this to depth k is k-saturation.

Formulas that occur in practice often have low hardness: they are refuted at depth 0, 1 or 2.

This crate follows the procedure of M. Sheeran and G. Stålmarck, A Tutorial on Stålmarck's Proof Procedure for Propositional Logic (FMCAD '98, LNCS 1522). It implements a written formal specification exactly.

Key Features

• Satisfiability (check_sat) and validity (prove), each with a verified model or counter-model.
• Results are Sat / Unsat / Unknown (or Valid / Invalid / Unknown). The answer is never a guess. Unknown says why: depth exhausted, branch limit, or timeout.
• Configurable Dilemma depth, structural sharing, branch limit and timeout.
• Solver counters, and a canonical form of the final relation for differential testing.
• Input as Rust values, as text ("a & (b | c) -> d".parse()), or as DIMACS CNF. A documented triple-file format is shared with other implementations.
• Seeded instance generators and a truth-table oracle for testing.
• Pure safe Rust with no dependencies.

Quick Start

[dependencies]
stalmarck = "0.4"

use stalmarck::{Config, Formula, ProofResult, SatResult, Solver};

let (a, b, c) = (Formula::var("a"), Formula::var("b"), Formula::var("c"));

// (a ∧ b) ∨ (a ∧ c) → a ∧ (b ∨ c) is valid, with hardness 1.
let f = ((a.clone() & b.clone()) | (a.clone() & c.clone()))
    .implies(a.clone() & (b.clone() | c));
let solver = Solver::new(Config::default().with_max_depth(1));
assert_eq!(solver.prove(&f).result, ProofResult::Valid);

// a ∧ ¬b is satisfiable.
match solver.check_sat(&(a & !b)).result {
    SatResult::Sat(model) => assert_eq!(model.get("b"), Some(false)),
    other => panic!("{other:?}"),
}

Run cargo run --example basic for a small demo that prints solver counters.

Command line

$ cargo install stalmarck
$ echo '!((a & b) | (a & c) -> a & (b | c))' | stalmarck --format prop -
s UNSAT
c depth=2 branches=1 merges=12 solve=0.007ms
$ stalmarck --json --relation -k 3 problem.cnf     # result-v1 JSON record

The exit status is 10 for SAT/INVALID, 20 for UNSAT/VALID and 0 for unknown. See stalmarck --help for all options.

Rust + Scryer Prolog

With the scryer feature, stalmarck::scryer::ScryerSolver runs every Dilemma branch in embedded Scryer Prolog. It gives the same answers, final relations and counters as Solver. It exists to compare implementation paradigms, not for speed.

stalmarck = { version = "0.4", features = ["scryer"] }

# scryer-prolog 0.10.0 trips a Rust safety check in debug builds:
[profile.dev.package.scryer-prolog]
debug-assertions = false

Status

0.4 contains the sequential pure-Rust reference implementation and the Rust + Scryer variant. Planned:

• optional parallel branch exploration;

The API may change before 1.0.

The procedure is complete only when the depth is at least the number of variables. At small depths it is a fast semi-decision procedure for easy formulas, by design.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please see our contributing guidelines for details on:

• Code style and testing requirements
• Submitting bug reports and feature requests
• Development setup and workflow

License

This project is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 only (AGPL-3.0-only). See LICENSE for details.