Abstract: A system and an associated method selectively process log files for enhancing performance of tablespace recovery by processing only those log files required, and for selecting which log file to process during recovery for both redo and rollback phases of recovery. The system and method skip the processing of log files that do not contain records of interest for the tablespace being recovered and determines whether a log file contains anything that needs to be played, in particular for the recovery of a subsystem in the database, such as a tablespace. Pre processing of the log files is not done, rather including tablespace ID correlated with log file ID information is collected while the log files are created. The cross-correlated information is used during tablespace recovery to selectively determine which of the log files to process. Some log files may be skipped in cases where not all of the database system is being recovered.