Program Derivation Using the Refinement Calculator

The refinement calculus provides a theory for the stepwise refinement of programs and this theory has been formalised in HOL. TkWinHOL is a powerful graphical user interface (GUI) that can be used to drive the HOL window Library. In this paper, we describe a tool called the Refinement Calculator which combines TkWinHOL and the HOL Refinement Calculus theory, to provide support for formal program development. The tool improves the usability of the HOL Refinement Calculus theory considerably through its window-inference based GUI and by supporting a conventional programming syntax.

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