Abstract Data Type Specification in the Affirm System

This paper describes the data type definition facilities of the AFFIRM system for program specification and verification. Following an overview of the system, we review the rewrite rule concepts that form the theoretical basis for its data type facilities. The main emphasis is on methods of ensuring convergence (finite and unique termination) of sets of rewrite rules and on the relation of this property to the equational and inductive proof theories of data types.