@inproceedings{han-etal-2026-dynamic,
title = "Dynamic Infilling Anchors for Format-Constrained Generation in Diffusion Large Language Models",
author = "Han, Boyan and
Wang, Yiwei and
Song, Yi and
Cai, Yujun and
Zhang, Chi",
editor = "Liakata, Maria and
Moreira, Viviane P. and
Zhang, Jiajun and
Jurgens, David",
booktitle = "Proceedings of the 64th Annual Meeting of the {A}ssociation for {C}omputational {L}inguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers)",
month = jul,
year = "2026",
address = "San Diego, California, United States",
publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
url = "https://aclanthology.org/2026.acl-long.1205/",
pages = "26213--26227",
ISBN = "979-8-89176-390-6",
abstract = "Diffusion large language models (dLLMs) offer bidirectional attention and parallel generation, enabling them to exploit global context and naturally support format-constrained tasks like parseable JSON or reasoning templates. While straightforward fixed anchors can enforce such constraints, they often impose rigid spans, leading to truncated reasoning or redundant content. To overcome this, we propose Dynamic Infilling Anchors (DIA), a training-free method that dynamically estimates end-anchor positions to adjust generation length before iterative infilling. This flexible mechanism ensures structural correctness and semantic coherence, avoiding the inefficiencies of fixed-span methods. Experiments on reasoning benchmarks demonstrate that DIA substantially improves format compliance and answer accuracy, achieving significant zero-shot gains on GSM8K and MATH. These results establish DIA as a robust pathway toward reliable, structure-aware generation."
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<abstract>Diffusion large language models (dLLMs) offer bidirectional attention and parallel generation, enabling them to exploit global context and naturally support format-constrained tasks like parseable JSON or reasoning templates. While straightforward fixed anchors can enforce such constraints, they often impose rigid spans, leading to truncated reasoning or redundant content. To overcome this, we propose Dynamic Infilling Anchors (DIA), a training-free method that dynamically estimates end-anchor positions to adjust generation length before iterative infilling. This flexible mechanism ensures structural correctness and semantic coherence, avoiding the inefficiencies of fixed-span methods. Experiments on reasoning benchmarks demonstrate that DIA substantially improves format compliance and answer accuracy, achieving significant zero-shot gains on GSM8K and MATH. These results establish DIA as a robust pathway toward reliable, structure-aware generation.</abstract>
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%0 Conference Proceedings
%T Dynamic Infilling Anchors for Format-Constrained Generation in Diffusion Large Language Models
%A Han, Boyan
%A Wang, Yiwei
%A Song, Yi
%A Cai, Yujun
%A Zhang, Chi
%Y Liakata, Maria
%Y Moreira, Viviane P.
%Y Zhang, Jiajun
%Y Jurgens, David
%S Proceedings of the 64th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers)
%D 2026
%8 July
%I Association for Computational Linguistics
%C San Diego, California, United States
%@ 979-8-89176-390-6
%F han-etal-2026-dynamic
%X Diffusion large language models (dLLMs) offer bidirectional attention and parallel generation, enabling them to exploit global context and naturally support format-constrained tasks like parseable JSON or reasoning templates. While straightforward fixed anchors can enforce such constraints, they often impose rigid spans, leading to truncated reasoning or redundant content. To overcome this, we propose Dynamic Infilling Anchors (DIA), a training-free method that dynamically estimates end-anchor positions to adjust generation length before iterative infilling. This flexible mechanism ensures structural correctness and semantic coherence, avoiding the inefficiencies of fixed-span methods. Experiments on reasoning benchmarks demonstrate that DIA substantially improves format compliance and answer accuracy, achieving significant zero-shot gains on GSM8K and MATH. These results establish DIA as a robust pathway toward reliable, structure-aware generation.
%U https://aclanthology.org/2026.acl-long.1205/
%P 26213-26227
Markdown (Informal)
[Dynamic Infilling Anchors for Format-Constrained Generation in Diffusion Large Language Models](https://aclanthology.org/2026.acl-long.1205/) (Han et al., ACL 2026)
ACL