vlookup - one to many relationship problem

[glorber]

Hi,
I have two large excel worksheets (A and B) each containing columns of 'ID' and 'date' and other columns that differ between the files. Each spreadsheet has multiple entries of a given ID and identicle matching dates. I would like to perform a search based on a given ID and date in file A and find the matching ID and date in file B. then extract a third value from B from the appropriate row.
I thought of using vlookup:

if(vlookup(IDInA,RangeInB,colOfDateInB,false)=DateinA,vlookup(...))

The problem is that vlookup stops searching after the first match (ID and Date) between the files. Any way around that?

I Know it sound copmlicated but I hope I managed to explain my problem.
Thanks.

 

[lotsasmiles]

Would it be too complicated to put in some sort of loop? I believe the vlookup stops after one because the destination cell can only have one value in it. Hope this helps, if only to give you a different way to look at it. Good luck!

 

[glorber]

I was thinking of a loop yet I'm not sure how to do that. Only thing that comes to mind is VisualBasic, and I'm not that familiar with it.