I have been working on a cobol proram for one of my classes, and I am completly lost to when it comes to reading from two files and "indexing" then.

Here is my problem, I have two input files. In the files, there are userID numbers. I am trying to find a way to write an alogithem, that would match the userID from file1, with the userID from file two, and output a report with the userID and the rest of the data.

Any suggestions?

oh yeahm were using microfocus as an IDE.
Thanks!

You can use multiple sort keys to lookup, define one DATA RECORD to read the input file data, beside microfocus , you can use lopeedit lite (http://www.softsea.com/review/LopeEdit-Lite.html), free and useful for cobol.