mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

A Survey of Text-to-SQL in the Era of LLMs: Where are we, and where are we going?

arXiv 2408.05109 ↗First posted 9 Aug 2024cs.DB cs.AIcited by 54

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Abstract (arXiv)

Translating users' natural language queries (NL) into SQL queries (i.e., Text-to-SQL, a.k.a. NL2SQL) can significantly reduce barriers to accessing relational databases and support various commercial applications. The performance of Text-to-SQL has been greatly enhanced with the emergence of Large Language Models (LLMs). In this survey, we provide a comprehensive review of Text-to-SQL techniques powered by LLMs, covering its entire lifecycle from the following four aspects: (1) Model: Text-to-SQL translation techniques that tackle not only NL ambiguity and under-specification, but also properly map NL with database schema and instances; (2) Data: From the collection of training data, data synthesis due to training data scarcity, to Text-to-SQL benchmarks; (3) Evaluation: Evaluating Text-to-SQL methods from multiple angles using different metrics and granularities; and (4) Error Analysis: analyzing Text-to-SQL errors to find the root cause and guiding Text-to-SQL models to evolve. Moreover, we offer a rule of thumb for developing Text-to-SQL solutions. Finally, we discuss the research challenges and open problems of Text-to-SQL in the LLMs era. Text-to-SQL Handbook: https://github.com/HKUSTDial/NL2SQL_Handbook

Key facts. Cited by 54 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 100 of its 161 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 9 Aug 2024.

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100 of 161 references.

References · 100

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38 more
  1. 2023Can LLM Already Serve as A Database Interface? A BIg Bench for Large-Scale Database Grounded Text-to-SQLscited by 667
  2. 2024DeepSeek LLM: Scaling Open-Source Language Models with Longtermismcited by 621
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  4. 2023DIN-SQL: Decomposed In-Context Learning of Text-to-SQL with Self-Correctioncited by 465
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  13. 2019CoSQL: A Conversational Text-to-SQL Challenge Towards Cross-Domain Natural Language Interfaces to Databasescited by 180
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  15. 2024The Effect of Sampling Temperature on Problem Solving in Large Language Modelscited by 168
  16. 2024CHESS: Contextual Harnessing for Efficient SQL Synthesiscited by 164
  17. 2023C3: Zero-shot Text-to-SQL with ChatGPTcited by 159
  18. 2023MAC-SQL: A Multi-Agent Collaborative Framework for Text-to-SQLcited by 158
  19. 2019SParC: Cross-Domain Semantic Parsing in Contextcited by 141
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  21. 2018Improving Text-to-SQL Evaluation Methodologycited by 133
  22. 2020Bridging Textual and Tabular Data for Cross-Domain Text-to-SQL Semantic Parsingcited by 133
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50 most cited of 100 All 100 (JSON)

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Citing papers per year: 2024: 4; 2025: 31; 2026: 19.

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  2. 2025Advances and Challenges in Foundation Agents: From Brain-Inspired Intelligence to Evolutionary, Collaborative, and Safe Systemscited by 125
  3. 2025VerlTool: Towards Holistic Agentic Reinforcement Learning with Tool Usecited by 92
  4. 2024The Death of Schema Linking? Text-to-SQL in the Age of Well-Reasoned Language Modelscited by 67
  5. 2025Synthetic Data Generation Using Large Language Models: Advances in Text and Codecited by 61
  6. 2025XiYan-SQL: A Novel Multi-Generator Framework For Text-to-SQLcited by 40
  7. 2025Self-Supervised Prompt Optimizationcited by 37
  8. 2025A Survey of Data Agents: Emerging Paradigm or Overstated Hype?cited by 30
  9. 2026AOrchestra: Automating Sub-Agent Creation for Agentic Orchestrationcited by 30
  10. 2025AgenticData: An Agentic Data Analytics System for Heterogeneous Datacited by 22
  11. 2025Time Travel is Cheating: Going Live with DeepFund for Real-Time Fund Investment Benchmarkingcited by 21
  12. 2025Agentar-Scale-SQL: Advancing Text-to-SQL through Orchestrated Test-Time Scalingcited by 20
38 more
  1. 2024From Natural Language to SQL: Review of LLM-based Text-to-SQL Systemscited by 15
  2. 2025CSC-SQL: Corrective Self-Consistency in Text-to-SQL via Reinforcement Learningcited by 15
  3. 2025Think2SQL: Reinforce LLM Reasoning Capabilities for Text2SQLcited by 14
  4. 2025LEAD: Iterative Data Selection for Efficient LLM Instruction Tuningcited by 13
  5. 2025SQLForge: Synthesizing Reliable and Diverse Data to Enhance Text-to-SQL Reasoning in LLMscited by 10
  6. 2025MTIR-SQL: Multi-turn Tool-Integrated Reasoning Reinforcement Learning for Text-to-SQLcited by 10
  7. 2025Sparks of Tabular Reasoning via Text2SQL Reinforcement Learningcited by 9
  8. 2025ReEx-SQL: Reasoning with Execution-Aware Reinforcement Learning for Text-to-SQLcited by 8
  9. 2025DeepVIS: Bridging Natural Language and Data Visualization Through Step-wise Reasoningcited by 8
  10. 2026InfoPO: Information-Driven Policy Optimization for User-Centric Agentscited by 8
  11. 2026APEX-SQL: Talking to the data via Agentic Exploration for Text-to-SQLcited by 7
  12. 2024Towards Optimizing SQL Generation via LLM Routingcited by 5
  13. 2025Automatic database description generation for Text-to-SQLcited by 5
  14. 2025RAISE: Reasoning Agent for Interactive SQL Explorationcited by 4
  15. 2025SQaLe: A Large Text-to-SQL Corpus Grounded in Real Schemascited by 3
  16. 2026Agentic SPARQL: Evaluating SPARQL-MCP-powered Intelligent Agents on the Federated KGQA Benchmarkcited by 3
  17. 2026Semantic Layers for Reliable LLM-Powered Data Analytics: A Paired Benchmark of Accuracy and Hallucination Across Three Frontier Modelscited by 3
  18. 2026FlexSQL: Flexible Exploration and Execution Make Better Text-to-SQL Agentscited by 3
  19. 2025GeoSQL-Eval: First Evaluation of LLMs on PostGIS-Based NL2GeoSQL Queriescited by 2
  20. 2025AGENTIQL: An Agent-Inspired Multi-Expert Framework for Text-to-SQL Generationcited by 2
  21. 2025SQLong: Enhanced NL2SQL for Longer Contexts with LLMscited by 1
  22. 2025TAIJI: MCP-based Multi-Modal Data Analytics on Data Lakescited by 1
  23. 2025Effective Learning for Small Reasoning Models: An Empirical Study on 0.5B Reasoning LLMscited by 1
  24. 2025Structured Information for Improving Spatial Relationships in Text-to-Image Generationcited by 1
  25. 2026EGREFINE: An Execution-Grounded Optimization Framework for Text-to-SQL Schema Refinementcited by 1
  26. 2026"Skill Issues'': Data-Centric Optimization of Lakehouse Agentscited by 1
  27. 2025Speculative Ad-hoc Queryingcited by 0
  28. 2025Distill-C: Enhanced NL2SQL via Distilled Customization with LLMscited by 0
  29. 2025RelationalFactQA: A Benchmark for Evaluating Tabular Fact Retrieval from Large Language Modelscited by 0
  30. 2025GradeSQL: Test-Time Inference with Outcome Reward Models for Text-to-SQL Generation from Large Language Modelscited by 0
  31. 2025Bridging Global Intent with Local Details: A Hierarchical Representation Approach for Semantic Validation in Text-to-SQLcited by 0
  32. 2026Business Logic-Driven Text-to-SQL Data Synthesis for Business Intelligencecited by 0
  33. 2026Sonar-TS: Search-Then-Verify Natural Language Querying for Time Series Databasescited by 0
  34. 2026Natural Language Interfaces for Spatial and Temporal Databases: A Comprehensive Overview of Methods, Taxonomy, and Future Directionscited by 0
  35. 2026TADI: Tool-Augmented Drilling Intelligence via Agentic LLM Orchestration over Heterogeneous Wellsite Datacited by 0
  36. 2026LEAF-SQL: Level-wise Exploration with Adaptive Fine-graining for Text-to-SQL Skeleton Predictioncited by 0
  37. 2026CAPER: Clause-Aligned Process Supervision for Text-to-SQLcited by 0
  38. 2026Integrating Reasoning and Generalization in Text-to-SQL via Self-Enhanced Fine-Tuningcited by 0

50 most cited of 54 All 54 (JSON)