Computer experiments with the REVE term rewriting system generator

A term rewriting system generator called REVE is described. REVE builds confluent and uniformly terminating term rewriting systems from sets of equations. Particular emphasis is placed on mechanization of termination proof. Indeed, REVE is one of the few such systems which can actually be called automatic because termination is fully integrated into the algorithms. REVE uses an incremental termination method based on recursive decomposition ordering which constructs the termination proof step by step from the presentation of the set of equations and which requires little knowledge of termination methods from the user. All examples from this paper are taken from abstract data type specifications.