Abstract: A method and system of providing external transaction protection for a database using the database log or journal. The method involves creating a set of transaction templates which define transactions, using the templates to determine whether each record or entry in the journal represent part of a transaction, and maintaining a set of index file indicating transactions in progress. Each transaction template contains a number of filenames identifying files in the database affected during the transaction defined by the template. Each template also contains a key value representing one or more data fields in the database included in every action performed during the transaction. For each entry in the journal, a determination is made whether the entry belongs to a transaction based on the data fields represented in the entry and the key values associated with the templates.