From my COBOL days numerous years ago, then comp-5 was machine dependant, so on an intel 8086 would be stored in reverse binary and wouldn't require the bit swapping by the compiler that defining as 'comp' would require. I remember a comp-x format too that was machine independant. We would also define a pic 9(04) comp-5 fields as pic x(02) comp-5 to make it more obvious that the field took 2 bytes of storage. That was based on Micro Focus compilers with syntax targetted at pc-only runtime environment where writing presentation manager apps in COBOL was the last word in chic and guaranteed many a dinner party invitation! I seem to remember that the indexed by declaration came in useful during iterations or using the Search verb, maybe, perhaps. Tony