concat
Syntax
concat(X, Y)
Arguments
X can be a STRING/CHAR scalar or vector.
Y can be a STRING/CHAR scalar.
If X or Y is not specified, it is treated as an empty string.
Details
If X is a STRING/CHAR scalar
- For an empty X,
if Y is an empty STRING/CHAR scalar, the function returns an empty string.
if Y is a non-empty STRING/CHAR scalar, the function returns Y.
Otherwise, the function forms a new string by combining X and Y regardless of whether Y is an empty string or not.
If X is a STRING/CHAR vector
For an empty X, the function returns an empty string.
- Otherwise,
if Y is an empty STRING/CHAR scalar, the function concatenates each element in X and returns a string object;
if Y is a non-empty STRING/CHAR scalar, Y serves as the separator between the elements in vector X and the function returns a string object.
Note: The function concat implicitly converts all arguments to STRING type (NULL values to empty strings) before concatenation.
Return value: a STRING scalar
Examples
// join two strings
$ concat (`hello, `world);
helloworld
// join IBM, GOOG and APPL with "," as the delimiter
$ x = concat(`IBM`GOOG`APPL, ",");
$ x;
IBM,GOOG,APPL
$ typestr x;
STRING
$ size x;
1
$ concat(string([]),"a")
NULL
$ concat("55","")
55
// When Y is not specified, the function joins the elements of X to form a new string
$ concat(`a`b`c`d,)
abcd