Patent ID: 8447725

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: at least one processor; a memory coupled to the at least one processor; a database residing in the memory, the database comprising a plurality of records; and a journaling mechanism residing in the memory and executed by the at least one processor, the journaling mechanism storing an entry in a journal when a record in the database changes, the entry including all data from all fields in the record that changed, the entry including all data from any fields in the record that are selected always to be journaled regardless of whether or not the selected fields in the record changed, the entry excluding all data from all non-selected fields in the record that did not change, the entry including a collected fields bitmap that indicates which fields in the record are included in the entry and which fields in the record are not included in the entry and a changed fields bitmap separate from the collected fields bitmap, wherein the changed fields bitmap indicates which fields in the record were changed and which fields in the record were not changed, the changed fields bitmap comprising a subset of the collected fields bitmap.