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Main Authors: Chen, QiHong, Yu, Jiachen, Li, Jiawei, Deng, Jiecheng, Chen, Justin Tian Jin, Ahmed, Iftekhar
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.01414
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author Chen, QiHong
Yu, Jiachen
Li, Jiawei
Deng, Jiecheng
Chen, Justin Tian Jin
Ahmed, Iftekhar
author_facet Chen, QiHong
Yu, Jiachen
Li, Jiawei
Deng, Jiecheng
Chen, Justin Tian Jin
Ahmed, Iftekhar
contents Recent advancements in Large Language Models (LLMs) have led to their widespread application in automated code generation. However, these models can still generate defective code that deviates from the specification. Previous research has mainly focused on the mistakes in LLM-generated standalone functions, overlooking real-world software development situations where the successful generation of the code requires software contexts such as external dependencies. In this paper, we considered both of these code generation situations and identified a range of \textit{non-syntactic mistakes} arising from LLMs' misunderstandings of coding question specifications. Seven categories of non-syntactic mistakes were identified through extensive manual analyses, four of which were missed by previous works. To better understand these mistakes, we proposed six reasons behind these mistakes from various perspectives. Moreover, we explored the effectiveness of LLMs in detecting mistakes and their reasons. Our evaluation demonstrated that GPT-4 with the ReAct prompting technique can achieve an F1 score of up to 0.65 when identifying reasons for LLM's mistakes, such as misleading function signatures. We believe that these findings offer valuable insights into enhancing the quality of LLM-generated code.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2411_01414
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Deep Dive Into Large Language Model Code Generation Mistakes: What and Why?
Chen, QiHong
Yu, Jiachen
Li, Jiawei
Deng, Jiecheng
Chen, Justin Tian Jin
Ahmed, Iftekhar
Software Engineering
Artificial Intelligence
Recent advancements in Large Language Models (LLMs) have led to their widespread application in automated code generation. However, these models can still generate defective code that deviates from the specification. Previous research has mainly focused on the mistakes in LLM-generated standalone functions, overlooking real-world software development situations where the successful generation of the code requires software contexts such as external dependencies. In this paper, we considered both of these code generation situations and identified a range of \textit{non-syntactic mistakes} arising from LLMs' misunderstandings of coding question specifications. Seven categories of non-syntactic mistakes were identified through extensive manual analyses, four of which were missed by previous works. To better understand these mistakes, we proposed six reasons behind these mistakes from various perspectives. Moreover, we explored the effectiveness of LLMs in detecting mistakes and their reasons. Our evaluation demonstrated that GPT-4 with the ReAct prompting technique can achieve an F1 score of up to 0.65 when identifying reasons for LLM's mistakes, such as misleading function signatures. We believe that these findings offer valuable insights into enhancing the quality of LLM-generated code.
title A Deep Dive Into Large Language Model Code Generation Mistakes: What and Why?
topic Software Engineering
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.01414