Tried help (and the help for xcollapse) but can't get an answer that makes sense to me.
I have three variables for country identifiers: country countrynum and contab. The first is str24, the second is integer, and the third is str3. I have the fist two in another data set but want to include the third by a merge.

But when I type

xcollapse country contab,by(countrynum) saving (gallupcontab,replace) I get:

type mismatch

and I get the same error message for:

collapse country contab,by(countrynum)

Any help would be appreciated.