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diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..153118c6b --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,138 @@ +[]( + https://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause) +[]( + https://travis-ci.org/CVC4/CVC4) + +CVC4 +=============================================================================== + +CVC4 is a tool for determining the satisfiability of a first order formula +modulo a first order theory (or a combination of such theories). It is the +fourth in the Cooperating Validity Checker family of tools (CVC, CVC Lite, +CVC3) but does not directly incorporate code from any previous version. + +CVC4 is intended to be an open and extensible SMT engine. It can be used as a +stand-alone tool or as a library. It has been designed to increase the +performance and reduce the memory overhead of its predecessors. It is written +entirely in C++ and is released under an open-source software license (see file +[COPYING](https://github.com/CVC4/CVC4/blob/master/COPYING)). + + +Website +------------------------------------------------------------------------------- + +More information about CVC4 is available at: +http://cvc4.cs.stanford.edu/ + +Download +------------------------------------------------------------------------------- + +The latest version of CVC4 is available on GitHub: +https://github.com/CVC4/CVC4 + +Source tar balls and binaries for releases and latest stable builds of the +[master branch](https://github.com/CVC4/CVC4) on GitHub can be +found [here](http://cvc4.cs.stanford.edu/downloads). + + +Build and Dependencies +------------------------------------------------------------------------------- + +CVC4 can be built on Linux and macOS. For Windows, CVC4 can be cross-compiled +using Mingw-w64. + +For detailed build and installation instructions on these platforms, +see file [INSTALL.md](https://github.com/CVC4/CVC4/blob/master/INSTALL.md). + + +Getting Started +------------------------------------------------------------------------------- + +We recommend that you visit our CVC4 tutorials online at: + + http://cvc4.cs.stanford.edu/wiki/Tutorials + +for help getting started using CVC4. + + +Contributing +------------------------------------------------------------------------------- + +We are always happy to hear feedback from our users: + +* if you need help with using CVC4, please refer to + [http://cvc4.stanford.edu/#Technical_Support](http://cvc4.stanford.edu/#Technical_Support). + +* if you need to report a bug with CVC4, or make a feature request, please + visit our bugtracker at our + [GitHub issues](https://github.com/CVC4/CVC4/issues) page or write to the + cvc-bugs@cs.stanford.edu mailing list. We are very grateful for bug reports, + as they help us improve CVC4, and patches are generally reviewed and accepted + quickly. + +* if you are using CVC4 in your work, or incorporating it into software of your + own, we'd like to invite you to leave a description and link to your + project/software on our [Third Party Applications](http://cvc4.cs.stanford.edu/wiki/Public:Third_Party_Applications). + +* if you are interested in contributing code (for example, a new + decision procedure implementation) to the CVC4 project, please + contact one of the [project leaders](#project_leaders). + We'd be happy to point you to some internal documentation to help you out. + +Thank you for using CVC4! + + +Project Leaders +------------------------------------------------------------------------------- + +* [Clark Barrett](http://theory.stanford.edu/~barrett/) (Stanford University) +* [Cesare Tinelli](http://homepage.cs.uiowa.edu/~tinelli/) (The University of Iowa) + + +Authors +------------------------------------------------------------------------------- + +For a full list of authors, please refer to the +[AUTHORS](https://github.com/CVC4/CVC4/blob/master/AUTHORS) file. + +History +------------------------------------------------------------------------------- + +The Cooperating Validity Checker series has a long history. The Stanford +Validity Checker (SVC) came first in 1996, incorporating theories and its own +SAT solver. Its successor, the Cooperating Validity Checker (CVC), had a more +optimized internal design, produced proofs, used the Chaff SAT solver, and +featured a number of usability enhancements. Its name comes from the +cooperative nature of decision procedures in Nelson-Oppen theory combination, +which share amongst each other equalities between shared terms. + +CVC Lite, first made available in 2003, was a rewrite of CVC that attempted to +make CVC more flexible (hence the "lite") while extending the feature set: CVC +Lite supported quantifiers where its predecessors did not. + +CVC3 was a major overhaul of portions of CVC Lite: it added better decision +procedure implementations, added support for using MiniSat in the core, and had +generally better performance. + +CVC4 is the fifth generation of this validity checker line. It represents a +complete re-evaluation of the core architecture to be both performant and to +serve as a cutting-edge research vehicle for the next several years. Rather +than taking CVC3 and redesigning problem parts, we've taken a clean-room +approach, starting from scratch. Before using any designs from CVC3, we have +thoroughly scrutinized, vetted, and updated them. Many parts of CVC4 bear only +a superficial resemblance, if any, to their correspondent in CVC3. + +However, CVC4 is fundamentally similar to CVC3 and many other modern SMT +solvers: it is a DPLL(T) solver, with a SAT solver at its core and a delegation +path to different decision procedure implementations, each in charge of solving +formulas in some background theory. + +The re-evaluation and ground-up rewrite was necessitated, we felt, by the +performance characteristics of CVC3. CVC3 has many useful features, but some +core aspects of the design led to high memory use, and the use of heavyweight +computation (where more nimble engineering approaches could suffice) makes CVC3 +a much slower prover than other tools. As these designs are central to CVC3, a +new version was preferable to a selective re-engineering, which would have +ballooned in short order. |