When Neural Model Meets NL2Code: A Survey

Given a natural language that describes the user's demands, the NL2Code task aims to generate code that addresses the demands. This is a critical but challenging task that mirrors the capabilities of AI-powered programming. The NL2Code task is inherently versatile, diverse and complex. For example, a demand can be described in different languages, in different formats, and at different levels of granularity. This inspired us to do this survey for NL2Code. In this survey, we focus on how does neural network (NN) solves NL2Code. We first propose a comprehensive framework, which is able to cover all studies in this field. Then, we in-depth parse the existing studies into this framework. We create an online website to record the parsing results, which tracks existing and recent NL2Code progress. In addition, we summarize the current challenges of NL2Code as well as its future directions. We hope that this survey can foster the evolution of this field.