I would like to create a long panel from the 17 waves of panel data from the HILDA survey but am struggling with two key issues:
(1) code to append the 17 waves, and
(2) dealing with the variable names, which include a prefix letter representing the number wave, e.g. ahgage - age in wave 1, bhgage - age in wave 2, chgage - age in wave 3, hence prefix 'a' = 1, 'b' = 2, etc. In this case, I believe I can use rename group (?) to remove the wave reference, but not sure of the exact code, and secondly, would I do so while appending the waves?

Most of the variables are in all waves (such as age, gender, education, wages), however there are three (categorical) variables only in waves 4, 7, 10 , 14 (hence the separate append).

My code for appending the waves follows:

clear
set memory 1g
set more off
use "C:\data\Combined_a170c.dta" // original data file
keep xwaveid ahgsex ahgage aeduc awage

tempfile master
save "`master'", replace // save to temp data file

// add in data from other waves (in and not in wave 1)

* Cleaning data for waves 2 to 17 // (excl waves 4, 7, 10, 14 as these include specific data not in other waves)

local wave b c e f h i k l m o p q
foreach x of local wave {
use "C:\data\Combined_`x'170c.dta", clear
keep xwaveid `x'hgsex `x'hgage `x'educ `x'wage
save "`master'", replace

use "C:\data\Hilda\Combined_`x'170c.dta", clear
append using "`master'"
save "C:\data\basedata.dta", replace // new data file
}

* Cleaning data for waves 4, 7, 10, 14

local wave2 d g j n // (waves 4, 7, 10, 14)
foreach y of local wave2 {
use "C:\data\Combined_`y'170c.dta", clear
keep xwaveid `y'hgsex `y'hgage `y'educ `y'wage `y'reltype `y'relimp `y'relat //
save "`master'", replace

use "C:\data\Combined_`y'170c.dta", clear
append using "`master'"
save "C:\data\basedata.dta", replace
}

//
Stata responded with "invalid file specification"
r(198);


Your kind assistance is appreciated as always.