How to combine 2 rows of data into 1 row_

[Lucrecia Lei]

Dear stata user,

I'm trying to combine 2 or more rows of information into 1 row, because they are about the same firm's information, but different deals this firm involve
Some of my dataset is like this:

* Example generated by -dataex-. For more info, type help dataex
clear
input byte nbidder long apermno double dealnumber int(adate edate) long tpermno
2 22983 441066020 12771 12823 66069
2 36542 441283020 12598 13048 66069
end
format %tdnn/dd/CCYY adate
format %tdnn/dd/CCYY edate

I want to put different deals of the same firm(identified by tpermno) in the same row (including the corresponding adate, edate, apermno related to this deal, and also nbidder), I think reshape might do but I couldn't figure it out.

* Example generated by -dataex-. For more info, type help dataex
clear
tpermno dealnumber1 adate1 edate1 apermno1 dealnumber2 adate2 edate2 apermno2 nbidder
66069 441066020 12771 12823 22983
66069 441283020 12598 13048 36542
end
format %tdnn/dd/CCYY adate
format %tdnn/dd/CCYY edate

Can someone indicate me what I should do?
Thanks a lot!

[Lucrecia Lei]

Hi thanks all, but I think I solve it using reshape, I first generate an id for each deal of the same tpermno and then use this as j(), use tpermno as i() to reshape wide.
But another question, now that I have dealnumber1 and dealnumber2, and my dataset is wide, is there a way to see the number of unique dealnumber (considering all dealnumberx) in my dataset?

[Carlo Lazzaro]

Lucrecia:
the main issue here is what you're going to do with your data.
For instance, if you're planning a panel data regression, the -long- format is the way to go (and this holds for many other Stata commands).