In previously reported research we designed and analyzed algorithms that improved upon the run time complexity of all known weak and strong mutation analysis methods at the expense of increased space complexity. Here we describe a new serial strong mutation algorithm whose running time is on the average much faster than the previous ones and that uses significantly less space than them also. Its space requirement is approximately the same as that of Mothra, a well-known and readily available implemented system. Moreover, while this algorithm can serve as basis for a new mutation system, it is designed to be consistent with the Mothra architecture, in the sense that, by replacing certain modules of that system with new ones, a much faster system will result. Such a Mothra-based implementation of the new work is in progress.

Existing serial algorithms to do mutation analysis are inefficient, and descriptions of parallel mutation systems pre-suppose that these serial algorithms are the best one can do serially. We present a universal mutation analysis data structure and new serial algorithms for both strong and weak mutation analysis that on average should perform much faster than existing ones, and can never do worse. We describe these algorithms as well as the results of our analysis of their run time complexities. We believe that this is the first paper in which analytical methods have been applied to obtain the run time complexities of mutation analysis algorithms.