+\begin{table}
+ \caption{\label{tab:termsyn} Concrete syntax of CIC terms: built-in
+ notation\strut}
+\hrule
+\[
+\begin{array}{@{}rcll@{}}
+ \NT{term} & ::= & & \mbox{\bf terms} \\
+ & & x & \mbox{(identifier)} \\
+ & | & n & \mbox{(number)} \\
+ & | & s & \mbox{(symbol)} \\
+ & | & \mathrm{URI} & \mbox{(URI)} \\
+ & | & \verb+_+ & \mbox{(implicit)}\TODO{sync} \\
+ & | & \verb+?+n~[\verb+[+~\{\NT{subst}\}~\verb+]+] & \mbox{(meta)} \\
+ & | & \verb+let+~\NT{ptname}~\verb+\def+~\NT{term}~\verb+in+~\NT{term} \\
+ & | & \verb+let+~\NT{kind}~\NT{defs}~\verb+in+~\NT{term} \\
+ & | & \NT{binder}~\{\NT{ptnames}\}^{+}~\verb+.+~\NT{term} \\
+ & | & \NT{term}~\NT{term} & \mbox{(application)} \\
+ & | & \verb+Prop+ \mid \verb+Set+ \mid \verb+Type+ \mid \verb+CProp+ & \mbox{(sort)} \\
+ & | & \verb+match+~\NT{term}~ & \mbox{(pattern matching)} \\
+ & & ~ ~ [\verb+[+~\verb+in+~x~\verb+]+]
+ ~ [\verb+[+~\verb+return+~\NT{term}~\verb+]+] \\
+ & & ~ ~ \verb+with [+~[\NT{rule}~\{\verb+|+~\NT{rule}\}]~\verb+]+ & \\
+ & | & \verb+(+~\NT{term}~\verb+:+~\NT{term}~\verb+)+ & \mbox{(cast)} \\
+ & | & \verb+(+~\NT{term}~\verb+)+ \\
+ \NT{defs} & ::= & & \mbox{\bf mutual definitions} \\
+ & & \NT{fun}~\{\verb+and+~\NT{fun}\} \\
+ \NT{fun} & ::= & & \mbox{\bf functions} \\
+ & & \NT{arg}~\{\NT{ptnames}\}^{+}~[\verb+on+~x]~\verb+\def+~\NT{term} \\
+ \NT{binder} & ::= & & \mbox{\bf binders} \\
+ & & \verb+\forall+ \mid \verb+\lambda+ \\
+ \NT{arg} & ::= & & \mbox{\bf single argument} \\
+ & & \verb+_+ \mid x \\
+ \NT{ptname} & ::= & & \mbox{\bf possibly typed name} \\
+ & & \NT{arg} \\
+ & | & \verb+(+~\NT{arg}~\verb+:+~\NT{term}~\verb+)+ \\
+ \NT{ptnames} & ::= & & \mbox{\bf bound variables} \\
+ & & \NT{arg} \\
+ & | & \verb+(+~\NT{arg}~\{\verb+,+~\NT{arg}\}~[\verb+:+~\NT{term}]~\verb+)+ \\
+ \NT{kind} & ::= & & \mbox{\bf induction kind} \\
+ & & \verb+rec+ \mid \verb+corec+ \\
+ \NT{rule} & ::= & & \mbox{\bf rules} \\
+ & & x~\{\NT{ptname}\}~\verb+\Rightarrow+~\NT{term}
+\end{array}
+\]
+\hrule
+\end{table}
+
+\subsubsection{Term input}
+
+The primary form of user interaction employed by \MATITA{} is textual script
+editing: the user modifies it and evaluate step by step its composing
+\emph{statements}. Examples of statements are inductive type definitions,
+theorem declarations, LCF-style tacticals, and macros (e.g. \texttt{Check} can
+be used to ask the system to refine a given term and pretty print the result).
+Since many statements refer to terms of the underlying calculus, \MATITA{} needs
+a concrete syntax able to encode terms of the Calculus of Inductive
+Constructions.
+
+Two of the requirements in the design of such a syntax are apparently in
+contrast:
+\begin{enumerate}
+ \item the syntax should be as close as possible to common mathematical practice
+ and implement widespread mathematical notations;
+ \item each term described by the syntax should be non-ambiguous meaning that it
+ should exists a function which associates to it a CIC term.
+\end{enumerate}
+
+These two requirements are addressed in \MATITA{} by the mean of two mechanisms
+which work together: \emph{term disambiguation} and \emph{extensible notation}.
+Their interaction is visible in the architecture of the \MATITA{} input phase,
+depicted in Fig.~\ref{fig:inputphase}. The architecture is articulated as a
+pipline of three levels: the concrete syntax level (level 0) is the one the user
+has to deal with when inserting CIC terms; the abstract syntax level (level 2)
+is an internal representation which intuitively encodes mathematical formulae at
+the content level~\cite{adams}\cite{mkm-structure}; the last level is that of
+CIC terms.
+
+\begin{figure}[ht]
+ \begin{center}
+ \includegraphics[width=0.9\textwidth]{input_phase}
+ \caption{\MATITA{} input phase}
+ \end{center}
+ \label{fig:inputphase}
+\end{figure}
+
+Requirement (1) is addressed by a built-in concrete syntax for terms, described
+in Tab.~\ref{tab:termsyn}, and the extensible notation mechanisms which offers a
+way for extending available mathematical notations. Extensible notation, which
+is also in charge of providing a parsing function mapping concrete syntax terms
+to content level terms, is described in Sect.~\ref{sec:notation}. Requirement
+(2) is addressed by the conjunct action of that parsing function and
+disambiguation which provides a function from content level terms to CIC terms.
+
+\subsubsection{Sources of ambiguity}
+
+The translation from content level terms to CIC terms is not straightforward
+because some nodes of the content encoding admit more that one CIC encoding,
+invalidating requirement (2).
+
+\begin{example}
+ \label{ex:disambiguation}
+
+ Consider the term at the concrete syntax level \texttt{\TEXMACRO{forall} x. x +
+ ln 1 = x} of Fig.~\ref{fig:inputphase}(a), it can be the type of a lemma the
+ user may want to prove. Assuming that both \texttt{+} and \texttt{=} are parsed
+ as infix operators, all the following questions are legitimate and must be
+ answered before obtaining a CIC term from its content level encoding
+ (Fig.~\ref{fig:inputphase}(b)):
+
+ \begin{enumerate}
+
+ \item Since \texttt{ln} is an unbound identifier, which CIC constants does it
+ represent? Many different theorems in the library may share its (rather
+ short) name \dots
+
+ \item Which kind of number (\IN, \IR, \dots) the \texttt{1} literal stand for?
+ Which encoding is used in CIC to represent it? E.g., assuming $1\in\IN$, is
+ it an unary or a binary encoding?
+
+ \item Which kind of equality the ``='' node represents? Is it Leibniz's
+ polymorhpic equality? Is it a decidable equality over \IN, \IR, \dots?
+
+ \end{enumerate}
+
+\end{example}
+
+In \MATITA, three \emph{sources of ambiguity} are admitted for content level
+terms: unbound identifiers, literal numbers, and operators. Each instance of
+ambiguity sources (ambiguous entity) occuring in a content level term is
+associated to a \emph{disambiguation domain}. Intuitively a disambiguation
+domain is a set of CIC terms which may be replaced for an ambiguous entity
+during disambiguation. Each item of the domain is said to be an
+\emph{interpretation} for the ambiguous entity.
+
+\emph{Unbound identifiers} (question 1) are ambiguous entities since the
+namespace of CIC objects is not flat and the same identifier may denote many
+ofthem. For example the short name \texttt{plus\_assoc} in the \HELM{} library
+is shared by three different theorems stating the associative property of
+different additions. This kind of ambiguity is avoidable if the user is willing
+to use long names (in form of URIs in the \texttt{cic://} scheme) in the
+concrete syntax, with the obvious drawbacks of obtaining long and unreadable
+terms.
+
+Given an unbound identifier, the corresponding disambiguation domain is computed
+querying the library for all constants, inductive types, and inductive type
+constructors having it as their short name (see the \LOCATE{} query in
+Sect.~\ref{sec:metadata}).
+
+\emph{Literal numbers} (question 2) are ambiguous entities as well since
+different kinds of numbers can be encoded in CIC (\IN, \IR, \IZ, \dots) using
+different encodings. Considering the restricted example of natural numbers we
+can for instance encode them in CIC using inductive datatypes with a number of
+constructor equal to the encoding base plus 1, obtaining one encoding for each
+base.
+
+For each possible way of mapping a literal number to a CIC term, \MATITA{} is
+aware of a \emph{number intepretation function} which, when applied to the
+natural number denoted by the literal\footnote{at the moment only literal
+natural number are supported in the concrete syntax} returns a corresponding CIC
+term. The disambiguation domain for a given literal number is built applying to
+the literal all available number interpretation functions in turn.
+
+Number interpretation functions can be defined in OCaml or directly using
+\TODO{notazione per i numeri}.
+
+\emph{Operators} (question 3) are intuitively head of applications, as such they
+are always applied to a non empty sequence of arguments. Their ambiguity is a
+need since it is often the case that some notation is used in an overloaded
+fashion to hide the use of different CIC constants which encodes similar
+concepts. For example, in the standard library of \MATITA{} the infix \texttt{+}
+notation is available building a binary \texttt{Op(+)} node, whose
+disambiguation domain may refer to different constants like the addition over
+natural numbers \URI{cic:/matita/nat/plus/plus.con} or that over real numbers of
+the \COQ{} standard library \URI{cic:/Coq/Reals/Rdefinitions/Rplus.con}.
+
+For each possible way of mapping an operator application to a CIC term,
+\MATITA{} knows an \emph{operator interpretation function} which, when applied
+to an operator and its arguments, returns a CIC term. The disambiguation domain
+for a given operator is built applying to the operator and its arguments all
+available operator interpretation functions in turn.
+
+Operator interpretation functions could be added using the
+\texttt{interpretation} statement. For example, among the first line of the
+script \FILE{matita/library/logic/equality.ma} from the \MATITA{} standard
+library we read:
+
+\begin{grafite}
+interpretation "leibnitz's equality"
+ 'eq x y =
+ (cic:/matita/logic/equality/eq.ind#xpointer(1/1) _ x y).
+\end{grafite}
+
+Evaluating it in \MATITA{} will add an operator interpretation function for the
+binary operator \texttt{eq} which expands to the CIC term on the right hand side
+of the statement. That CIC term can be written using only built-in concrete
+syntax, can contain no ambiguity source; still, it can refer to operator
+arguments bound on the left hand side and can contain implicit terms (denoted
+with \texttt{\_}) which will be expanded to fresh metavariables. The latter
+feature is used in the example above for the first argument of Leibniz's
+polymorhpic equality.
+
+\subsubsection{Disambiguation algorithm}
+
+\NOTE{assumo\\
+ che si sia\\
+ gia' parlato\\
+ di refine}
+
+
+A \emph{disambiguation algorithm} takes as input a content level term and return
+a fully determined CIC term. The key observation on which a disambiguation
+algorithm is based is that given a content level term with more than one sources
+of ambiguity, not all possible combination of interpretation lead to a typable
+CIC term. In the term of Ex.~\ref{ex:disambiguation} for instance the
+interpretation of \texttt{ln} as a function from \IR to \IR and the
+interpretation of \texttt{1} as the Peano number $1$ can't coexists. The notion
+of ``can't coexists'' in the disambiguation of \MATITA{} is inherited from the
+refiner described in Sect.~\ref{sec:metavariables}: as long as
+$\mathit{refine}(c)\neq\bot$, the combination of interpretation which led to $c$
+can coexists.
+
+The \emph{naive disambiguation algorithm} takes as input a content level term
+$t$ and proceeds as follows:
+
+\begin{enumerate}
+
+ \item Create disambiguation domains $\{D_i | i\in\mathit{Dom}(t)\}$, where
+ $\mathit{Dom}(t)$ is the set of ambiguity sources of $t$. Each $D_i$ is a set
+ of CIC terms and can be built as described above.
+
+ \item Let $\Phi = \{\phi_i | {i\in\mathit{Dom}(t)},\phi_i\in D_i\}$ be an
+ interpretation for $t$. Given $t$ and an interpretation $\Phi$, a CIC term is
+ fully determined. Iterate over all possible interpretations of $t$ and refine
+ the corresponding CIC terms, keep only interpretations which lead to CIC terms
+ $c$ s.t. $\mathit{refine}(c)\neq\bot$ (i.e. interpretations that determine
+ typable terms).
+
+ \item Let $n$ be the number of interpretations who survived step 2. If $n=0$
+ signal a type error. If $n=1$ we have found exactly one CIC term corresponding
+ to $t$, returns it as output of the disambiguation phase. If $n>1$ we have
+ found many different CIC terms which can correspond to the content level term,
+ let the user choose one of the $n$ interpretations and returns the
+ corresponding term.
+
+\end{enumerate}
+
+The above algorithm is highly inefficient since the number of possible
+interpretations $\Phi$ grows exponentially with the number of ambiguity sources.
+The actual algorithm used in \MATITA{} is far more efficient being, in the
+average case, linear in the number of ambiguity sources.
+
+\TODO{FINQUI}
+
+The efficient algorithm can be applied if the logic can be extended with
+metavariables and a refiner can be implemented. This is the case for CIC and
+several other logics.
+\emph{Metavariables}~\cite{munoz} are typed, non linear placeholders that can
+occur in terms; $?_i$ usually denotes the $i$-th metavariable, while $?$ denotes
+a freshly created metavariable. A \emph{refiner}~\cite{McBride} is a
+function whose input is a term with placeholders and whose output is either a
+new term obtained instantiating some placeholder or $\epsilon$, meaning that no
+well typed instantiation could be found for the placeholders occurring in
+the term (type error).
+
+The efficient algorithm starts with an interpretation $\Phi_0 = \{\phi_i |
+\phi_i = ?, i\in\mathit{Dom}(t)\}$,
+which associates a fresh metavariable to each
+source of ambiguity. Then it iterates refining the current CIC term (i.e. the
+term obtained interpreting $t$ with $\Phi_i$). If the refinement succeeds the
+next interpretation $\Phi_{i+1}$ will be created \emph{making a choice}, that is
+replacing a placeholder with one of the possible choice from the corresponding
+disambiguation domain. The placeholder to be replaced is chosen following a
+preorder visit of the ambiguous term. If the refinement fails the current set of
+choices cannot lead to a well-typed term and backtracking is attempted.
+Once an unambiguous correct interpretation is found (i.e. $\Phi_i$ does no
+longer contain any placeholder), backtracking is attempted
+anyway to find the other correct interpretations.
+
+The intuition which explain why this algorithm is more efficient is that as soon
+as a term containing placeholders is not typable, no further instantiation of
+its placeholders could lead to a typable term. For example, during the
+disambiguation of user input \texttt{\TEXMACRO{forall} x. x*0 = 0}, an
+interpretation $\Phi_i$ is encountered which associates $?$ to the instance
+of \texttt{0} on the right, the real number $0$ to the instance of \texttt{0} on
+the left, and the multiplication over natural numbers (\texttt{mult} for short)
+to \texttt{*}. The refiner will fail, since \texttt{mult} require a natural
+argument, and no further instantiation of the placeholder will be tried.
+
+If, at the end of the disambiguation, more than one possible interpretations are
+possible, the user will be asked to choose the intended one (see
+Fig.~\ref{fig:disambiguation}).
+
+\begin{figure}[htb]
+% \centerline{\includegraphics[width=0.9\textwidth]{disambiguation-1}}
+ \caption{\label{fig:disambiguation} Disambiguation: interpretation choice}
+\end{figure}
+
+Details of the disambiguation algorithm of \WHELP{} can
+be found in~\cite{disambiguation}, where an equivalent algorithm
+that avoids backtracking is also presented.
+