Incorrect behaviour of .check() in z3py - z3

Question

Consider a set of constraints F = [a + b > 10, a*a + b + 10 < 50].
When I run it using:
s = Solver()
s.add(F)
s.check()
I get sat solution.
If I run it with:
s = Solver()
s.check(F)
I get an unknown solution. Can someone explain why this is happening?

Answer 1

Let's see:
from z3 import *
a = Int('a')
b = Int('b')
F = [a + b > 10, a*a + b + 10 < 50]
s = Solver()
s.add(F)
print (s.check())
print (s.model())
This prints:
sat
[b = 15, a = -4]
That looks good to me.
Let's try your second variant:
from z3 import *
a = Int('a')
b = Int('b')
F = [a + b > 10, a*a + b + 10 < 50]
s = Solver()
print (s.check(F))
print (s.model())
This prints:
sat
[b = 7, a = 4]
That looks good to me too.
So, I don't know how you're getting the unknown answer. Maybe you have an old version of z3; or you've some other things in your program you're not telling us about.
The important thing to note, however, is that s.add(F); s.check() AND s.check(F) are different operations:
s.add(F); s.check() means: Assert the constraints in F; check that they are satisfiable.
s.check(F) means: Check that all the other constraints are satisfiable, assuming F is. In particular, it does not assert F. (This is important if you do further asserts/checks later on.)
So, in general these two different ways of using check are used for different purposes; and can yield different answers. But in the presence of no other assertions around, you'll get a solution for both, though of course the models might be different.
Aside One reason you can get unknown is in the presence of non-linear constraints. And your a*a+b+10 < 50 is non-linear, since it does have a multiplication of a variable by itself. You can deal with that either by using a bit-vector instead of an Int (if applicable), or using the nonlinear-solver; which can still give you unknown, but might perform better. But just looking at your question as you asked it, z3 is just fine handling it.

Answer 2

To find out what is going on within s.check(F), you can do the following:
from z3 import *
import inspect
a = Int('a')
b = Int('b')
F = [a + b > 10, a*a + b + 10 < 50]
s = Solver()
print (s.check(F))
print (s.model())
source_check = inspect.getsource(s.check)
print(source_check)
The resulting output:
sat
[b = 10, a = 1]
def check(self, *assumptions):
"""Check whether the assertions in the given solver plus the optional assumptions are consistent or not.
>>> x = Int('x')
>>> s = Solver()
>>> s.check()
sat
>>> s.add(x > 0, x < 2)
>>> s.check()
sat
>>> s.model().eval(x)
1
>>> s.add(x < 1)
>>> s.check()
unsat
>>> s.reset()
>>> s.add(2**x == 4)
>>> s.check()
unknown
"""
s = BoolSort(self.ctx)
assumptions = _get_args(assumptions)
num = len(assumptions)
_assumptions = (Ast * num)()
for i in range(num):
_assumptions[i] = s.cast(assumptions[i]).as_ast()
r = Z3_solver_check_assumptions(self.ctx.ref(), self.solver, num, _assumptions)
return CheckSatResult(r)
The semantics of assumptions vs. assertions are discussed here and here. But if have to admit that they are not really clear to me yet.