A Systematic Literature Review on Large Language Models for Automated Program Repair

Automated Program Repair (APR) attempts to patch software bugs and reduce manual debugging efforts. Very recently, with the advances in LLMs, an increasing number of APR techniques have been proposed, facilitating software development and maintenance and demonstrating remarkable performance. However, due to ongoing explorations in the LLM-based APR field, it is challenging for researchers to understand the current achievements, challenges, and potential opportunities. This work provides the first systematic literature review to summarize the applications of LLMs in APR between 2020 and 2024. We analyze 127 relevant papers from LLMs, APR and their integration perspectives. First, we categorize existing popular LLMs that are applied to support APR and outline three types of utilization strategies for their deployment. Besides, we detail some specific repair scenarios that benefit from LLMs, e.g., semantic bugs and security vulnerabilities. Furthermore, we discuss several critical aspects of integrating LLMs into APR research, e.g., input forms and open science. Finally, we highlight a set of challenges remaining to be investigated and the potential guidelines for future research. Overall, our paper provides a systematic overview of the research landscape to the APR community, helping researchers gain a comprehensive understanding of achievements and promote future research.