creating panel data when the panel variable (ID) has a string format

[Rita Samudra]

Dear,
I would like to set my data as panel data, but the panel variable (ID) has a string format.
Here you see the beginning of the dataset. The panel variable goes as follows: "Country abbreviation" + "-" + "numerical values" + "-" + "numerical values"


Person |
identifier |
(fix across |
modules and |
waves) | Freq. Percent Cum.
-------------+-----------------------------------
AT-030522-01 | 2 0.10 0.10
AT-054255-02 | 2 0.10 0.19
AT-060684-01 | 2 0.10 0.29
AT-070982-01 | 2 0.10 0.38
AT-070982-02 | 2 0.10 0.48
.
.
.
ES-019673-02 | 2 0.10 35.44
ES-027984-02 | 2 0.10 35.54
ES-035082-01 | 2 0.10 35.63
ES-045069-01 | 2 0.10 35.73
ES-093754-01 | 2 0.10 35.82
ES-108677-01 | 2 0.10 35.92
.
.
.

What I would like to do is
1. To replace the country identifier with country codes:
For the above example, AT (Austria) with 11, ES (Spain) with number 15.




2. To delete the two "-"s.

I've tried solving my problem with the function subinstr() but I was unsuccesful, as I've just started with STATA recently..
Is there anyone who could help me how to tackle this?

[Carlo Lazzaro]

Rita:
something in between dream and reality may also work:

et obs 2
g country_string="AT-030522-01"
replace country_string="ES-019673-02" in 2
split country_string , p(-)
drop country_string2 country_string3
encode country_string1, g(country_id)
drop country_string country_string1
xtset country_idlist
. list

     +----------+
     | countr~d |
     |----------|
  1. |       AT |
  2. |       ES |
     +----------+

.

[Øyvind Snilsberg]

* Example generated by -dataex-. For more info, type help dataex
clear
input str12 id str11 country
"AT-030522-01" "11. Austria"
"AT-054255-02" "11. Austria"
"AT-060684-01" "11. Austria"
"AT-070982-01" "11. Austria"
"AT-070982-02" "11. Austria"
"ES-019673-02" "15. Spain"  
"ES-027984-02" "15. Spain"  
"ES-035082-01" "15. Spain"  
"ES-045069-01" "15. Spain"  
"ES-093754-01" "15. Spain"  
"ES-108677-01" "15. Spain"  
end

replace id = substr(country,1,2) + substr(id,3,.)
replace id = subinstr(id,"-","",.)

[Rita Samudra]

Thank you Øyvind Snilsberg!