code_transformed: The Influence of Large Language Models on Code

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Xu, Yuliang, Huang, Siming, Geng, Mingmeng, Wan, Yao, Shi, Xuanhua, Chen, Dongping
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Xu, Yuliang
Huang, Siming
Geng, Mingmeng
Wan, Yao
Shi, Xuanhua
Chen, Dongping
author_facet Xu, Yuliang
Huang, Siming
Geng, Mingmeng
Wan, Yao
Shi, Xuanhua
Chen, Dongping
contents Coding remains one of the most fundamental modes of interaction between humans and machines. With the rapid advancement of Large Language Models (LLMs), code generation capabilities have begun to significantly reshape programming practices. This development prompts a central question: Have LLMs transformed code style, and how can such transformation be characterized? In this paper, we present a pioneering study that investigates the impact of LLMs on code style, with a focus on naming conventions, complexity, maintainability, and similarity. By analyzing code from over 20,000 GitHub repositories linked to arXiv papers published between 2020 and 2025, we identify measurable trends in the evolution of coding style that align with characteristics of LLM-generated code. For instance, the proportion of snake_case function names in Python code increased from 40.7% in Q1 2023 to 49.8% in Q3 2025. Furthermore, we investigate how LLMs approach algorithmic problems by examining their reasoning processes. Our experimental results may provide the first large-scale empirical evidence that LLMs affect real-world programming style. We release all the experimental dataset and source code at: https://github.com/ignorancex/LLM_code
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_12014
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle code_transformed: The Influence of Large Language Models on Code
Xu, Yuliang
Huang, Siming
Geng, Mingmeng
Wan, Yao
Shi, Xuanhua
Chen, Dongping
Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Software Engineering
Coding remains one of the most fundamental modes of interaction between humans and machines. With the rapid advancement of Large Language Models (LLMs), code generation capabilities have begun to significantly reshape programming practices. This development prompts a central question: Have LLMs transformed code style, and how can such transformation be characterized? In this paper, we present a pioneering study that investigates the impact of LLMs on code style, with a focus on naming conventions, complexity, maintainability, and similarity. By analyzing code from over 20,000 GitHub repositories linked to arXiv papers published between 2020 and 2025, we identify measurable trends in the evolution of coding style that align with characteristics of LLM-generated code. For instance, the proportion of snake_case function names in Python code increased from 40.7% in Q1 2023 to 49.8% in Q3 2025. Furthermore, we investigate how LLMs approach algorithmic problems by examining their reasoning processes. Our experimental results may provide the first large-scale empirical evidence that LLMs affect real-world programming style. We release all the experimental dataset and source code at: https://github.com/ignorancex/LLM_code
title code_transformed: The Influence of Large Language Models on Code
topic Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Software Engineering
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.12014