CERTIFY-BOOK

how to produce a certificate for a book
Major Section:  BOOKS

Examples:
(certify-book "my-arith")          ; certify in a world with 0 commands
(certify-book "my-arith" 3)        ; ... in a world with 3 commands
(certify-book "my-arith" ?)        ; ... in a world without checking the
                                     ;     number of commands
(certify-book "my-arith" 0 nil)    ; ... without compilation
(certify-book "my-arith" 0 t)      ; ... with compilation (default)
(certify-book "my-arith" 0 t :ttags (foo))
                                     ; ... allowing trust tag (ttag) foo
(certify-book "my-arith" 0 t :ttags :all)
                                     ; ... allowing all trust tags (ttags)
(certify-book "my-arith" t)        ; ... from world of old certificate
(certify-book "my-arith" 0 nil :acl2x t)
                                     ; ... writing or reading a .acl2x file

General Form:
(certify-book book-name
              k                           ; [default 0]
              compile-flg                 ; [default t]
              :defaxioms-okp t/nil        ; [default nil]
              :skip-proofs-okp t/nil      ; [default nil]
              :ttags ttags                ; [default nil]
              :acl2x t/nil                ; [default nil]
              :ttagsx ttags               ; [default nil]
              :write-port t/nil           ; [default t]
              :pcert pcert                ; [default nil]
              )
where book-name is a book name (see book-name), k is used to indicate your approval of the ``certification world,'' and compile-flg can control whether the book is to be compiled. The defaults for compile-flg, skip-proofs-okp, acl2x, write-port, and pcert can be affected by environment variables. All of these arguments are described in detail below, except for :pcert. (We assume below that the value of :pcert is nil (and environment variable ACL2_PCERT_ARG is unset or the empty string). For a discussion of this argument, see provisional-certification.)

Certification occurs in some logical world, called the ``certification world.'' That world must contain the defpkgs needed to read and execute the forms in the book. The commands necessary to recreate that world from the ACL2 initial world are called the ``portcullis commands,'' and will be copied into the certificate created for the book. Those commands will be re-executed whenever the book is included, to ensure that the appropriate packages (and all other names used in the certification world) are correctly defined. The certified book will be more often usable if the certification world is kept to a minimal extension of the ACL2 initial world (for example, to prevent name clashes with functions defined in other books). Thus, before you call certify-book for the first time on a book, you may wish to get into the initial ACL2 world (e.g., with :ubt 1 or just starting a new version of ACL2), defpkg the desired packages, and then invoke certify-book.

The k argument to certify-book must be either a nonnegative integer or else one of the symbols t or ? in the ACL2 package. If k is an integer, then it must be the number of commands that have been executed after the initial ACL2 world to create the world in which certify-book was called. One way to obtain this number is by doing :pbt :start to see all the commands back to the first one.

If k is t it means that certify-book should use the same world used in the last certification of this book. K may be t only if you call certify-book in the initial ACL2 world and there is a certificate on file for the book being certified. (Of course, the certificate is probably invalid.) In this case, certify-book reads the old certificate to obtain the portcullis commands and executes them to recreate the certification world.

Finally, k may be ?, in which case there is no check made on the certification world. That is, if k is ? then no action related to the preceding two paragraphs is performed, which can be a nice convenience but at the cost of eliminating a potentially valuable check that the certification world may be as expected.

We next describe the meaning of compile-flg and how it defaults. If explicit compilation has been suppressed by (set-compiler-enabled nil state), then compile-flg is coerced to nil; see compilation. Otherwise compile-flg may be given the value of t (or :all, which is equivalent to t except during provisional certification; see provisional-certification), indicating that the book is to be compiled, or else nil. (Note that compilation initially creates a compiled file with a temporary file name, and then moves that temporary file to the final compiled file name obtained by adding a suitable extension to the book name. Thus, a compiled file will appear atomically in its intended location.) Finally, suppose that compile-flg is not supplied (or is :default). If environment variable ACL2_COMPILE_FLG is defined and not the empty string, then its value should be T, NIL, or ALL after converting to upper case, in which case compile-flg is considered to have value t, nil, or :all (respectively). Otherwise compile-flg defaults to t. Note that the value :all is equivalent to t except for during the Convert procedure of provisional certification; see provisional-certification.

Two keyword arguments, :defaxioms-okp and :skip-proofs-okp, determine how the system handles the inclusion of defaxiom events and skip-proofs events, respectively, in the book. The value t allows such events, but prints a warning message. The value nil causes an error if such an event is found. Nil is the default unless keyword argument :acl2x t is provided and state global 'write-acl2x is a cons (see set-write-acl2x), in which case the default is t.

The keyword argument :ttags may normally be omitted. A few constructs, used for example if you are building your own system based on ACL2, may require it. See defttag for an explanation of this argument.

When book B is certified with value t (the default) for keyword argument :write-port, a file B.port is written by certification process. This file contains all of the portcullis commands for B, i.e., all user commands present in the ACL2 logical world at the time certify-book is called. if B.lisp later becomes uncertified, say because events from that file or an included book have been edited, then (include-book "B") will consult B.port to evaluate forms in that file before evaluating the events in B.lisp. On the other hand, B.port is ignored when including B if B is certified.

If you use guards, please note certify-book is executed as though (set-guard-checking nil) has been evaluated; see set-guard-checking. If you want guards checked, consider using ld instead, or in addition; see ld.

For a general discussion of books, see books. Certify-book is akin to what we have historically called a ``proveall'': all the forms in the book are ``proved'' to guarantee their admissibility. More precisely, certify-book (1) reads the forms in the book, confirming that the appropriate packages are defined in the certification world; (2) does the full admissibility checks on each form (proving termination of recursive functions, proving theorems, etc.), checking as it goes that each form is an embedded event form (see embedded-event-form); (3) rolls the world back to the initial certification world and does an include-book of the book to check for local incompatibilities (see local-incompatibility); (4) writes a certificate recording not only that the book was certified but also recording the commands necessary to recreate the certification world (so the appropriate packages can be defined when the book is included in other worlds) and the check sums of all the books involved (see certificate); (5) compiles the book if so directed (and then loads the object file in that case). The result of executing a certify-book command is the creation of a single new event, which is actually an include-book event. If you don't want its included events in your present world, simply execute :ubt :here afterwards.

A utility is provided to assist in debugging failures of certify-book; see redo-flat.)

Certify-book requires that the default defun-mode (see default-defun-mode) be :logic when certification is attempted. If the mode is not :logic, an error is signalled.

An error will occur if certify-book has to deal with any uncertified book other than the one on which it was called. For example, if the book being certified includes another book, that subbook must already have been certified.

If you have a certified book that has remained unchanged for some time you might well not remember the appropriate defpkgs for it, though they are stored in the certificate file and (by default) also in the .port file. If you begin to change the book, don't throw away its certificate file just because it has become invalid! It is an important historical document until the book is re-certified. More important, don't throw away the .port file, as it will provide the portcullis commands when including the book as an uncertified book; see include-book.

When certify-book is directed to produce a compiled file, it calls the Common Lisp function compile-file on the original source file. This creates a compiled file with an extension known to ACL2, e.g., if the book is named "my-book" then the source file is "my-book.lisp" and the compiled file under GCL will be "my-book.o" while under SBCL it will be "my-book.fasl". The compiled file is then loaded. When include-book is used later on "my-book" it will automatically load the compiled file, provided the compiled file has a later write date than the source file. The only effect of such compilation and loading is that the functions defined in the book execute faster. See guard for a discussion of the issues, and if you want more details about books and compilation, see book-compiled-file.

When certify-book is directed not to produce a compiled file, it will delete any existing compiled file for the book, so as not to mislead include-book into loading the now outdated compiled file. Otherwise, certify-book will create a temporary ``expansion file'' to compile, obtained by appending the string "@expansion.lsp" to the end of the book name. Remark: Users may ignore that file, which is automatically deleted unless state global variable 'save-expansion-file has been set, presumably by a system developer, to a non-nil value; see book-compiled-file for more information about hit issue, including the role of environment variable ACL2_SAVE_EXPANSION.

After execution of a certify-book form, the value of acl2-defaults-table is restored to what it was immediately before that certify-book form was executed. See acl2-defaults-table.

Those who use the relatively advanced features of trust tags (see defttag) and make-event may wish to know how to create a certificate file that avoids dependence on trust tags that are used only during make-event expansion. For this, including documentation of the :acl2x and :ttagsx keyword arguments for certify-book, see set-write-acl2x.

This completes the tour through the documentation of books.