Detecting and Correcting Hallucinations in LLM-Generated Code via Deterministic AST Analysis
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Abstract (arXiv)
Large Language Models (LLMs) for code generation boost productivity but frequently introduce Knowledge Conflicting Hallucinations (KCHs), subtle, semantic errors, such as non-existent API parameters, that evade linters and cause runtime failures. Existing mitigations like constrained decoding or non-deterministic LLM-in-the-loop repair are often unreliable for these errors. This paper investigates whether a deterministic, static-analysis framework can reliably detect textitand auto-correct KCHs. We propose a post-processing framework that parses generated code into an Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) and validates it against a dynamically-generated Knowledge Base (KB) built via library introspection. This non-executing approach uses deterministic rules to find and fix both API and identifier-level conflicts. On a manually-curated dataset of 200 Python snippets, our framework detected KCHs with 100% precision and 87.6% recall (0.934 F1-score), and successfully auto-corrected 77.0% of all identified hallucinations. Our findings demonstrate that this deterministic post-processing approach is a viable and reliable alternative to probabilistic repair, offering a clear path toward trustworthy code generation.
Key facts. Cited by 1 paper in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 5 of its 13 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 27 Jan 2026.
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5 of 13 references.
References · 5
- 2021PICARD: Parsing Incrementally for Constrained Auto-Regressive Decoding from Language Modelscited by 411
- 2023The Impact of AI on Developer Productivity: Evidence from GitHub Copilotcited by 274
- 2024Towards More Trustworthy and Interpretable LLMs for Code through Syntax-Grounded Explanationscited by 11
- 2025Hallucination by Code Generation LLMs: Taxonomy, Benchmarks, Mitigation, and Challengescited by 11
- 2025Static Analysis as a Feedback Loop: Enhancing LLM-Generated Code Beyond Correctnesscited by 8
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