A method and apparatus for performing computationally intensive calculations on a database server that provides a recovery mechanism is provided. These calculations involve a series of updates performed on data stored as data items in a database server. An existing recovery mechanism of the database server is used to store previous versions of the data items. The previous versions of the data items are subsequently retrieved from the recovery mechanism and used to determine whether the formula involved in the calculation should be modified, whether to continue the calculations with the current formula, or whether to terminate the calculations. By extending the functionality of the SELECT statement, the program can access the previous versions of the data items.