Tautology is a logical expression which is always true for any values of its variables. On the other hand, contradiction is a logical expression which is always false for any values of its variables. For example, the following expression will be a tautology if it is true for any p=1/0 and q=1/0.
Again, the following expression is always false whether p is 0 or 1. So it is a contradiction.
I just wrote a program to check two variable expression either it is a tautology or contradiction. I used QString because it has easier find and replace all feature. Although custom C++ functions can be used to do the replace thing. Check my code. I used the following characters as logical characters because standard keyboards don't have the AND, OR etc sign.
& - AND
| - OR
! - NOT
> - Implies if
<> - Only if
Code
#include <iostream>
#include <list>
using namespace std;
void find_and_replace(string& source, string const& find, string const& replace)
{
for(std::string::size_type i = 0; (i = source.find(find, i)) != std::string::npos;)
{
source.replace(i, find.length(), replace);
i += replace.length() - find.length() + 1;
}
}
void replaceByRules(string& input)
{
while(input.size() != 1)
{
//NOT
find_and_replace(input, "!1","0");
find_and_replace(input, "!0","1");
//AND
find_and_replace(input, "1&1","1");
find_and_replace(input, "0&0","0");
find_and_replace(input, "0&1","0");
find_and_replace(input, "1&0","0");
//OR
find_and_replace(input, "1|1","1");
find_and_replace(input, "0|0","0");
find_and_replace(input, "1|0","1");
find_and_replace(input, "0|1","1");
//->
find_and_replace(input, "1>1","1");
find_and_replace(input, "1>0","0");
find_and_replace(input, "0>1","1");
find_and_replace(input, "0>0","1");
//<>
find_and_replace(input, "1<>1","1");
find_and_replace(input, "1<>0","0");
find_and_replace(input, "0<>1","0");
find_and_replace(input, "0<>0","1");
//Brackets
find_and_replace(input, "(1)","1");
find_and_replace(input, "(0)","0");
}
}
void makeLogic(string& input, const string& a, const string& b)
{
find_and_replace(input, "p",a);
find_and_replace(input, "q",b);
replaceByRules(input);
}
void verifyExpression(string& input)
{
string p0q0, p0q1, p1q0, p1q1;
p0q0 = p0q1 = p1q0 = p1q1 = input;
makeLogic(p0q0, "0", "0");
makeLogic(p0q1, "0", "1");
makeLogic(p1q0, "1", "0");
makeLogic(p1q1, "1", "1");
if(p0q0==p0q1 and p0q1==p1q0 and p1q1=="1")
cout << input << " is a Tautology" << endl;
else if(p0q0==p0q1 and p0q1==p1q0 and p1q1=="0")
cout << input << " is a Contradiction" << endl;
}
int main()
{
list<string> input;
input.push_back("(p&q)|(!p)|(!q)");
input.push_back("(p&q)>p");
input.push_back("p>(p|q)");
input.push_back("((p|q)&p)>p");
input.push_back("p&!p");
for(int i=0; i<6; i++)
{
verifyExpression(input.front());
input.pop_front();
}
return 0;
}