Code LLMs generate substantially worse comments outside English, and no tested automatic metric or LLM judge reliably matches human assessment of those outputs.
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A Survey on Large Language Models for Code Generation
26 Pith papers cite this work. Polarity classification is still indexing.
26
Pith papers citing it
abstract
Large Language Models (LLMs) have garnered remarkable advancements across diverse code-related tasks, known as Code LLMs, particularly in code generation that generates source code with LLM from natural language descriptions. This burgeoning field has captured significant interest from both academic researchers and industry professionals due to its practical significance in software development, e.g., GitHub Copilot. Despite the active exploration of LLMs for a variety of code tasks, either from the perspective of natural language processing (NLP) or software engineering (SE) or both, there is a noticeable absence of a comprehensive and up-to-date literature review dedicated to LLM for code generation. In this survey, we aim to bridge this gap by providing a systematic literature review that serves as a valuable reference for researchers investigating the cutting-edge progress in LLMs for code generation. We introduce a taxonomy to categorize and discuss the recent developments in LLMs for code generation, covering aspects such as data curation, latest advances, performance evaluation, ethical implications, environmental impact, and real-world applications. In addition, we present a historical overview of the evolution of LLMs for code generation and offer an empirical comparison using the HumanEval, MBPP, and BigCodeBench benchmarks across various levels of difficulty and types of programming tasks to highlight the progressive enhancements in LLM capabilities for code generation. We identify critical challenges and promising opportunities regarding the gap between academia and practical development. Furthermore, we have established a dedicated resource GitHub page (https://github.com/juyongjiang/CodeLLMSurvey) to continuously document and disseminate the most recent advances in the field.
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representative citing papers
BEAM reformulates LLM-based heuristic design as bi-level optimization using GA for structures, MCTS for placeholders, and adaptive memory to outperform prior single-layer methods on CVRP and MIS tasks.
R2Eval is a new benchmark with 135 real-world code reasoning problems from Python projects that preserves complex data structures for more realistic LLM evaluation.
AdverMCTS frames code generation as a minimax game where an attacker evolves tests to expose flaws in solver-generated code, yielding more robust outputs than static-test baselines.
IoT-Brain uses a neuro-symbolic Spatial Trajectory Graph to ground LLMs for verifiable semantic-spatial sensor scheduling, achieving 37.6% higher task success with lower resource use on a campus-scale benchmark.
A new benchmark for 0-to-1 CLI tool generation shows state-of-the-art LLMs achieve under 43% success rate with black-box equivalence testing against real oracles.
LLMs display clear performance stratification on formal language tasks aligned with Chomsky hierarchy complexity levels, limited by severe efficiency barriers rather than absolute capability.
Large-scale trajectory analysis of 19 coding agents on 500 tasks finds that LLM choice drives outcomes more than framework design and that context-gathering plus validation behaviors improve success beyond task difficulty predictions.
DBCooker automates synthesis of database native functions via LLM-guided characterization, coding plans, hybrid filling, and progressive validation, delivering 34.55% higher accuracy than baselines on SQLite, PostgreSQL, and DuckDB while generating functions absent from SQLite 3.50.
An LLM framework with tailored prompts and a new dataset of 31,165 annotated instances achieves 0.92 positive recall and 0.85 negative recall for detecting 13 smart contract vulnerability categories.
DSIPA is a zero-shot black-box detector that uses sentiment distribution consistency and preservation metrics to identify LLM text, reporting up to 49.89% F1 gains over baselines across domains and models.
Meta-Aligner introduces a meta-learner network that produces dynamic preference weights to enable bidirectional optimization between preferences and LLM policy responses for multi-objective alignment.
RealBench is a new repo-level code generation benchmark that adds UML diagrams to natural language specs, showing LLMs struggle more at full repositories, create modules with errors, and perform best with whole-repo generation on small projects versus module-by-module on complex ones.
Metamorphic testing on Defects4J and GitBug-Java reveals substantial performance drops in seven LLMs that correlate with NLL, indicating data leakage in LLM-based program repair.
A small set of sparse autoencoder features in LLMs drives shifts between generous and selfish allocations in dictator games, with causal patching and steering confirming their role and generalization to other social games.
A two-stage multi-agent LLM converts structural inputs to JSON then platform-specific scripts for ETABS, SAP2000, and OpenSees, achieving over 90% accuracy on 20 frame problems across ten trials.
LLM agents resolve fewer than half of issues while satisfying design constraints despite passing tests, as shown by a benchmark of 495 issues and 1787 constraints from six repositories.
Ditto quantizes Code LLMs with K-Means codebooks and compiles inference via LLVM-BLAS replacement to deliver up to 10.5x faster, 6.4x smaller, and 10.5x lower-energy execution on commodity hardware while losing only 0.27% pass@1 accuracy.
Generative video models exhibit emergent zero-shot capabilities across perception, manipulation, and basic reasoning tasks.
Mono2Sls automates monolith-to-serverless migration with static analysis and multi-stage LLM agents, achieving 100% deployment success and 66.1% end-to-end correctness on six benchmarks.
HieraSparse delivers a hierarchical semi-structured sparse KV attention system that achieves 1.2x KV compression and 4.57x decode attention speedup versus prior unstructured sparsity methods at equivalent sparsity, plus up to 1.85x prefill speedup and 1.37x/1.77x speedups with magnitude pruning and
APMPO boosts average Pass@1 scores on math reasoning benchmarks by 3 points over GRPO by using an adaptive power-mean policy objective and feedback-driven clipping bounds in RLVR training.
FREIA applies free energy principles and adaptive advantage shaping to unsupervised RL, outperforming baselines by 0.5-3.5 Pass@1 points on math reasoning with a 1.5B model.
Security practitioners use LLMs independently for low-risk productivity tasks while showing interest in enterprise platforms, but reliability, verification needs, and security risks limit broader autonomy.
citing papers explorer
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Evaluating Non-English Developer Support in Machine Learning for Software Engineering
Code LLMs generate substantially worse comments outside English, and no tested automatic metric or LLM judge reliably matches human assessment of those outputs.
-
BEAM: Bi-level Memory-adaptive Algorithmic Evolution for LLM-Powered Heuristic Design
BEAM reformulates LLM-based heuristic design as bi-level optimization using GA for structures, MCTS for placeholders, and adaptive memory to outperform prior single-layer methods on CVRP and MIS tasks.
-
Evaluating LLMs Code Reasoning Under Real-World Context
R2Eval is a new benchmark with 135 real-world code reasoning problems from Python projects that preserves complex data structures for more realistic LLM evaluation.
-
AdverMCTS: Combating Pseudo-Correctness in Code Generation via Adversarial Monte Carlo Tree Search
AdverMCTS frames code generation as a minimax game where an attacker evolves tests to expose flaws in solver-generated code, yielding more robust outputs than static-test baselines.
-
IoT-Brain: Grounding LLMs for Semantic-Spatial Sensor Scheduling
IoT-Brain uses a neuro-symbolic Spatial Trajectory Graph to ground LLMs for verifiable semantic-spatial sensor scheduling, achieving 37.6% higher task success with lower resource use on a campus-scale benchmark.
-
Evaluating LLM-Based 0-to-1 Software Generation in End-to-End CLI Tool Scenarios
A new benchmark for 0-to-1 CLI tool generation shows state-of-the-art LLMs achieve under 43% success rate with black-box equivalence testing against real oracles.
-
Evaluating the Formal Reasoning Capabilities of Large Language Models through Chomsky Hierarchy
LLMs display clear performance stratification on formal language tasks aligned with Chomsky hierarchy complexity levels, limited by severe efficiency barriers rather than absolute capability.
-
Beyond Resolution Rates: Behavioral Drivers of Coding Agent Success and Failure
Large-scale trajectory analysis of 19 coding agents on 500 tasks finds that LLM choice drives outcomes more than framework design and that context-gathering plus validation behaviors improve success beyond task difficulty predictions.
-
Automating Database-Native Function Code Synthesis with LLMs
DBCooker automates synthesis of database native functions via LLM-guided characterization, coding plans, hybrid filling, and progressive validation, delivering 34.55% higher accuracy than baselines on SQLite, PostgreSQL, and DuckDB while generating functions absent from SQLite 3.50.
-
Tailored Prompts, Targeted Protection: Vulnerability-Specific LLM Analysis for Smart Contracts
An LLM framework with tailored prompts and a new dataset of 31,165 annotated instances achieves 0.92 positive recall and 0.85 negative recall for detecting 13 smart contract vulnerability categories.
-
DSIPA: Detecting LLM-Generated Texts via Sentiment-Invariant Patterns Divergence Analysis
DSIPA is a zero-shot black-box detector that uses sentiment distribution consistency and preservation metrics to identify LLM text, reporting up to 49.89% F1 gains over baselines across domains and models.
-
Meta-Aligner: Bidirectional Preference-Policy Optimization for Multi-Objective LLMs Alignment
Meta-Aligner introduces a meta-learner network that produces dynamic preference weights to enable bidirectional optimization between preferences and LLM policy responses for multi-objective alignment.
-
RealBench: A Repo-Level Code Generation Benchmark Aligned with Real-World Software Development Practices
RealBench is a new repo-level code generation benchmark that adds UML diagrams to natural language specs, showing LLMs struggle more at full repositories, create modules with errors, and perform best with whole-repo generation on small projects versus module-by-module on complex ones.
-
A Metamorphic Testing Approach to Diagnosing Memorization in LLM-Based Program Repair
Metamorphic testing on Defects4J and GitBug-Java reveals substantial performance drops in seven LLMs that correlate with NLL, indicating data leakage in LLM-based program repair.
-
Understanding the Mechanism of Altruism in Large Language Models
A small set of sparse autoencoder features in LLMs drives shifts between generous and selfish allocations in dictator games, with causal patching and steering confirming their role and generalization to other social games.
-
Automating Structural Analysis Across Multiple Software Platforms Using Large Language Models
A two-stage multi-agent LLM converts structural inputs to JSON then platform-specific scripts for ETABS, SAP2000, and OpenSees, achieving over 90% accuracy on 20 frame problems across ten trials.
-
Does Pass Rate Tell the Whole Story? Evaluating Design Constraint Compliance in LLM-based Issue Resolution
LLM agents resolve fewer than half of issues while satisfying design constraints despite passing tests, as shown by a benchmark of 495 issues and 1787 constraints from six repositories.
-
Compiling Code LLMs into Lightweight Executables
Ditto quantizes Code LLMs with K-Means codebooks and compiles inference via LLVM-BLAS replacement to deliver up to 10.5x faster, 6.4x smaller, and 10.5x lower-energy execution on commodity hardware while losing only 0.27% pass@1 accuracy.
-
Video models are zero-shot learners and reasoners
Generative video models exhibit emergent zero-shot capabilities across perception, manipulation, and basic reasoning tasks.
-
Mono2Sls: Automated Monolith-to-Serverless Migration via Multi-Stage Pipeline with Static Analysis
Mono2Sls automates monolith-to-serverless migration with static analysis and multi-stage LLM agents, achieving 100% deployment success and 66.1% end-to-end correctness on six benchmarks.
-
HieraSparse: Hierarchical Semi-Structured Sparse KV Attention
HieraSparse delivers a hierarchical semi-structured sparse KV attention system that achieves 1.2x KV compression and 4.57x decode attention speedup versus prior unstructured sparsity methods at equivalent sparsity, plus up to 1.85x prefill speedup and 1.37x/1.77x speedups with magnitude pruning and
-
Adapt to Thrive! Adaptive Power-Mean Policy Optimization for Improved LLM Reasoning
APMPO boosts average Pass@1 scores on math reasoning benchmarks by 3 points over GRPO by using an adaptive power-mean policy objective and feedback-driven clipping bounds in RLVR training.
-
Free Energy-Driven Reinforcement Learning with Adaptive Advantage Shaping for Unsupervised Reasoning in LLMs
FREIA applies free energy principles and adaptive advantage shaping to unsupervised RL, outperforming baselines by 0.5-3.5 Pass@1 points on math reasoning with a 1.5B model.
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Like a Hammer, It Can Build, It Can Break: Large Language Model Uses, Perceptions, and Adoption in Cybersecurity Operations on Reddit
Security practitioners use LLMs independently for low-risk productivity tasks while showing interest in enterprise platforms, but reliability, verification needs, and security risks limit broader autonomy.
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Combining Static Code Analysis and Large Language Models Improves Correctness and Performance of Algorithm Recognition
Hybrid LLM plus static analysis for algorithm recognition in code cuts required model calls by 72-97% and lifts F1-scores by as much as 12 points.
- OpenClassGen: A Large-Scale Corpus of Real-World Python Classes for LLM Research