Understanding Defects in Generated Codes by Language Models
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This study investigates the reliability of code generation by Large Language Models (LLMs), focusing on identifying and analyzing defects in the generated code. Despite the advanced capabilities of LLMs in automating code generation, ensuring the accuracy and functionality of the output remains a significant challenge. By using a structured defect classification method to understand their nature and origins this study categorizes and analyzes 367 identified defects from code snippets generated by LLMs, with a significant proportion being functionality and algorithm errors. These error categories indicate key areas where LLMs frequently fail, underscoring the need for targeted improvements. To enhance the accuracy of code generation, this paper implemented five prompt engineering techniques, including Scratchpad Prompting, Program of Thoughts Prompting, Chain-of-Thought Prompting, Chain of Code Prompting, and Structured Chain-of-Thought Prompting. These techniques were applied to refine the input prompts, aiming to reduce ambiguities and improve the models' accuracy rate. The research findings suggest that precise and structured prompting significantly miti-gates common defects, thereby increasing the reliability of LLM-aenerated code.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.038 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".