A Survey on Text-to-SQL Parsing: Concepts, Methods, and Future Directions
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Abstract (arXiv)
Text-to-SQL parsing is an essential and challenging task. The goal of text-to-SQL parsing is to convert a natural language (NL) question to its corresponding structured query language (SQL) based on the evidences provided by relational databases. Early text-to-SQL parsing systems from the database community achieved a noticeable progress with the cost of heavy human engineering and user interactions with the systems. In recent years, deep neural networks have significantly advanced this task by neural generation models, which automatically learn a mapping function from an input NL question to an output SQL query. Subsequently, the large pre-trained language models have taken the state-of-the-art of the text-to-SQL parsing task to a new level. In this survey, we present a comprehensive review on deep learning approaches for text-to-SQL parsing. First, we introduce the text-to-SQL parsing corpora which can be categorized as single-turn and multi-turn. Second, we provide a systematical overview of pre-trained language models and existing methods for text-to-SQL parsing. Third, we present readers with the challenges faced by text-to-SQL parsing and explore some potential future directions in this field.
Key facts. Cited by 51 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 77 of its 103 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 29 Aug 2022.
Builds on
77 of 103 references.
References · 77
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50 most cited of 77 All 77 (JSON)
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Citing papers per year: 2022: 5; 2023: 12; 2024: 13; 2025: 14; 2026: 7.
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- 2026An Iterative LangGraph Agent for Text-to-SQL: Natural Language Access to the Chicago Crime Database19 Sep 2026
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- 2026CHS-SQL: A Text-to-SQL approach based on Confidence-Guided Heuristic Search Schema Linking process17 Jun 2026
- 2026Extending Confidence-Based Text2Cypher with Grammar and Schema Aware Filtering11 May 2026
- 2026Sonar-TS: Search-Then-Verify Natural Language Querying for Time Series Databases19 Feb 2026
- 2026Evaluating Semantic and Syntactic Understanding in Large Language Models for Payroll Systems25 Jan 2026
- 2025CricBench: A Multilingual Benchmark for Evaluating LLMs in Cricket Analytics26 Dec 2025
- 2025Text-to-SQL as Dual-State Reasoning: Integrating Adaptive Context and Progressive Generation26 Nov 2025
- 2025Prompt Engineering Techniques for Context-dependent Text-to-SQL in Arabic16 Nov 2025
- 2025PCRLLM: Proof-Carrying Reasoning with Large Language Models under Stepwise Logical Constraints11 Nov 2025
- 2025Rethinking Text-to-SQL: Dynamic Multi-turn SQL Interaction for Real-world Database Exploration30 Oct 2025
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- 2025Harnessing Temporal Databases for Systematic Evaluation of Factual Time-Sensitive Question-Answering in Large Language Models4 Aug 2025
- 2025A Survey of Context Engineering for Large Language Models17 Jul 2025
- 2025SWE-SQL: Illuminating LLM Pathways to Solve User SQL Issues in Real-World Applications23 Jun 2025
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- 2025LogicCat: A Chain-of-Thought Text-to-SQL Benchmark for Complex Reasoning24 May 2025
- 2025Knapsack Optimization-based Schema Linking for LLM-based Text-to-SQL Generation18 Feb 2025
- 2024Cooperative SQL Generation for Segmented Databases By Using Multi-functional LLM Agents8 Dec 2024
- 2024RSL-SQL: Robust Schema Linking in Text-to-SQL Generation31 Oct 2024
- 2024BIS: NL2SQL Service Evaluation Benchmark for Business Intelligence Scenarios30 Oct 2024
- 2024KBLaM: Knowledge Base augmented Language Model14 Oct 2024
- 2024Enhancing LLM Fine-tuning for Text-to-SQLs by SQL Quality Measurement2 Oct 2024
- 2024DataGpt-SQL-7B: An Open-Source Language Model for Text-to-SQL24 Sep 2024
- 2024A Survey on Employing Large Language Models for Text-to-SQL Tasks21 Jul 2024
- 2024AnnotatedTables: A Large Tabular Dataset with Language Model Annotations24 Jun 2024
- 2024Next-Generation Database Interfaces: A Survey of LLM-based Text-to-SQL12 Jun 2024
- 2024VisTR: Visualizations as Representations for Time-series Table Reasoning6 Jun 2024
- 2024CHESS: Contextual Harnessing for Efficient SQL Synthesis27 May 2024
- 2024SQLBench: A Comprehensive Evaluation for Text-to-SQL Capabilities of Large Language Models5 Mar 2024
- 2024Large Language Model for Table Processing: A Survey4 Feb 2024
- 2023Xpert: Empowering Incident Management with Query Recommendations via Large Language Models19 Dec 2023
- 2023Fine-Tuning Language Models for Context-Specific SQL Query Generation4 Dec 2023
- 2023Unifying the Perspectives of NLP and Software Engineering: A Survey on Language Models for Code14 Nov 2023
- 2023TableQAKit: A Comprehensive and Practical Toolkit for Table-based Question Answering23 Oct 2023
- 2023Text-to-SQL Empowered by Large Language Models: A Benchmark Evaluation29 Aug 2023
- 2023Dialogue Agents 101: A Beginner's Guide to Critical Ingredients for Designing Effective Conversational Systems14 Jul 2023
- 2023Optimal Transport Posterior Alignment for Cross-lingual Semantic Parsing9 Jul 2023
- 2023Can LLM Already Serve as A Database Interface? A BIg Bench for Large-Scale Database Grounded Text-to-SQLs4 May 2023
- 2023DIN-SQL: Decomposed In-Context Learning of Text-to-SQL with Self-Correction21 Apr 2023
- 2023Conversational Text-to-SQL: An Odyssey into State-of-the-Art and Challenges Ahead21 Feb 2023
- 2023Large Language Models are Versatile Decomposers: Decompose Evidence and Questions for Table-based Reasoning31 Jan 2023
- 2023Graphix-T5: Mixing Pre-Trained Transformers with Graph-Aware Layers for Text-to-SQL Parsing18 Jan 2023
- 2022On the Security Vulnerabilities of Text-to-SQL Models28 Nov 2022
- 2022Towards Generalizable and Robust Text-to-SQL Parsing23 Oct 2022
- 2022STAR: SQL Guided Pre-Training for Context-dependent Text-to-SQL Parsing21 Oct 2022
- 2022Graph-to-Text Generation with Dynamic Structure Pruning15 Sep 2022
50 newest of 51 All 51 (JSON)
- 2023Large Language Models are Versatile Decomposers: Decompose Evidence and Questions for Table-based Reasoningcited by 177
- 2025Text-to-SQL as Dual-State Reasoning: Integrating Adaptive Context and Progressive Generationcited by 8
- 2025LogicCat: A Chain-of-Thought Text-to-SQL Benchmark for Complex Reasoningcited by 7
- 2024VisTR: Visualizations as Representations for Time-series Table Reasoningcited by 2
- 2025Rethinking Text-to-SQL: Dynamic Multi-turn SQL Interaction for Real-world Database Explorationcited by 1
- 2025PCRLLM: Proof-Carrying Reasoning with Large Language Models under Stepwise Logical Constraintscited by 0
- 2025Text-to-SQL as Dual-State Reasoning: Integrating Adaptive Context and Progressive Generation26 Nov 2025
- 2025PCRLLM: Proof-Carrying Reasoning with Large Language Models under Stepwise Logical Constraints11 Nov 2025
- 2025Rethinking Text-to-SQL: Dynamic Multi-turn SQL Interaction for Real-world Database Exploration30 Oct 2025
- 2025LogicCat: A Chain-of-Thought Text-to-SQL Benchmark for Complex Reasoning24 May 2025
- 2024VisTR: Visualizations as Representations for Time-series Table Reasoning6 Jun 2024
- 2023Large Language Models are Versatile Decomposers: Decompose Evidence and Questions for Table-based Reasoning31 Jan 2023
- 2023Can LLM Already Serve as A Database Interface? A BIg Bench for Large-Scale Database Grounded Text-to-SQLscited by 667
- 2023DIN-SQL: Decomposed In-Context Learning of Text-to-SQL with Self-Correctioncited by 465
- 2023Text-to-SQL Empowered by Large Language Models: A Benchmark Evaluationcited by 378
- 2024CHESS: Contextual Harnessing for Efficient SQL Synthesiscited by 164
- 2025A Survey of Context Engineering for Large Language Modelscited by 120
- 2024Next-Generation Database Interfaces: A Survey of LLM-based Text-to-SQLcited by 118
- 2023Graphix-T5: Mixing Pre-Trained Transformers with Graph-Aware Layers for Text-to-SQL Parsingcited by 93
- 2024A Survey on Employing Large Language Models for Text-to-SQL Taskscited by 67
- 2023Unifying the Perspectives of NLP and Software Engineering: A Survey on Language Models for Codecited by 62
- 2024Large Language Model for Table Processing: A Surveycited by 52
- 2024RSL-SQL: Robust Schema Linking in Text-to-SQL Generationcited by 51
- 2024SQLBench: A Comprehensive Evaluation for Text-to-SQL Capabilities of Large Language Modelscited by 32
12 most cited of 43 All 43 (JSON)
- 2026An Iterative LangGraph Agent for Text-to-SQL: Natural Language Access to the Chicago Crime Database19 Sep 2026
- 2026Language-Augmented Semantic Priors for B-Spline Surface Fitting10 Sep 2026
- 2026SQLMorph: Query Mutation and Fine-Grained Metrics for Text-to-SQL Evaluation8 Sep 2026
- 2026CHS-SQL: A Text-to-SQL approach based on Confidence-Guided Heuristic Search Schema Linking process17 Jun 2026
- 2026Extending Confidence-Based Text2Cypher with Grammar and Schema Aware Filtering11 May 2026
- 2026Sonar-TS: Search-Then-Verify Natural Language Querying for Time Series Databases19 Feb 2026
- 2026Evaluating Semantic and Syntactic Understanding in Large Language Models for Payroll Systems25 Jan 2026
- 2025CricBench: A Multilingual Benchmark for Evaluating LLMs in Cricket Analytics26 Dec 2025
- 2025Prompt Engineering Techniques for Context-dependent Text-to-SQL in Arabic16 Nov 2025
- 2025MaskSQL: Safeguarding Privacy for LLM-Based Text-to-SQL via Abstraction27 Sep 2025
- 2025End-to-End Text-to-SQL with Dataset Selection: Leveraging LLMs for Adaptive Query Generation8 Aug 2025
- 2025Harnessing Temporal Databases for Systematic Evaluation of Factual Time-Sensitive Question-Answering in Large Language Models4 Aug 2025
12 newest of 43 All 43 (JSON)