How does one define dependent type with named arguments in Coq without issues in unification in the constructors?

Question

I want to defined a lenghted list but I like arguments with names at the top of the inductive definition. Whenever I try that I get unification errors with things I hoped worked and was forced to do a definition that obviously has bugs e.g. allows a list where everything is length 0 but has 1 element. How do I fix this?

  Inductive Vector {A : Type} (n : nat) : Type :=
    | vnil (* not quite right...*)
    | vcons (hd : A) (tail: Vector (n-1)).
  Check vnil 0.
  Check vcons 1 true (vnil 0).

  (* Inductive Vector' (n : nat) : Type :=
  | vnil': Vector' 0
  | vcons': A -> Vector' n -> Vector' (S n). *)

  Inductive Vector' {A: Type} : nat -> Type :=
  | vnil': Vector' 0
  | vcons': forall n : nat, A -> Vector' n -> Vector' (S n).
  Check vnil'.
  Check vcons' 0 true (vnil').

  Inductive Vector'' {A : Type} (n : nat) : Type :=
  | vnil'': Vector'' n (* seems weird, wants to unify with n, argh! *)
  | vcons'': A -> Vector'' (n-1) -> Vector'' n.
  Check vnil'' 0.
  Check vcons'' 1 true (vnil'' 0).
  (* Check vcons'' 0 true (vnil'' 0). *) (* it also worked! nooooo! hope the -1 did the trick but not *)

Answer 1

Named arguments to the left of : (they are called parameters) are implicitly forall'd in each constructor and must appear as the same variable in the return type of each constructor. Arguments to the right (they are called indices) are not implicitly forall'd and may appear as anything. Part of the issue with your definitions is that n is already introduced by the time you're writing the type of each constructor, so you can't quite restrict it to be Z or S m at that point.

The idea is that parameters are supposed to be parameters to the whole inductive definition. Vector A n and Vector B m do not depend on each other; it would make sense to consider Vector A and Vector B to be different inductive definitions, and Vector as a family of inductives parameterized by a Type. On the other hand, Vector A (S n) refers to Vector A n; you cannot construct the type Vector A (S n) without first constructing Vector A n, so they should be considered parts of one inductive construction Vector A : nat -> Type.

This interpretation is not strictly enforced—you can poke a hole in it with Inductive E (n : nat) : Set := | mk_E : E (S n) -> E n.—but the rule about parameters vs. indices in constructor return types is enforced. It is the intent of the design of Coq that the "most natural" way to define Vector is

(* making A an implicit argument to Vector seems a bad idea... *)
Inductive Vector (A : Type) : nat -> Type :=
| vnil  : Vector A O
| vcons : forall n, A -> Vector A n -> Vector A (S n).
(* if you want to clean up vnil and vcons afterwards you can issue something like *)
Arguments vnil {A}.
Arguments vcons {A n}.
(* it would also work to define Vector with A implicit and then just use Arguments on Vector to make A explicit (it would leave n explicit in vcons), but that's just weird *)

If you want to clarify what the nat is doing, you could just leave a comment like

(* A [Vector A n] is a list of [n] elements of type [A]. *)

or

Inductive Vector (A : Type) : (* n *) nat -> Type :=

If you really want Inductive Vector (A : Type) (n : nat) : Type, then you have to resort to something like

Inductive Vector (A : Type) (n : nat) : Type :=
| vnil  (prf : n = O)
| vcons (m : nat) (prf : n = S m) (x : A) (xs : Vector A m).

Which makes everything messy.