How to concatenate string variables in Bash

Question

In PHP, strings are concatenated together as follows:

$foo = \"Hello\";
$foo .= \" World\";

Here, $foo becomes \"Hello World\"

Answer 1

You can concatenate without the quotes. Here is an example:

$Variable1 Open
$Variable2 Systems
$Variable3 $Variable1$Variable2
$echo $Variable3

This last statement would print "OpenSystems" (without quotes).

This is an example of a Bash script:

v1=hello
v2=world
v3="$v1       $v2"
echo $v3            # Output: hello world
echo "$v3"          # Output: hello       world

Answer 2

foo="Hello"
foo="${foo} World"
echo "${foo}"
> Hello World

In general to concatenate two variables you can just write them one after another:

a='Hello'
b='World'
c="${a} ${b}"
echo "${c}"
> Hello World

Answer 3

a="Hello,"
a=$a" World!"
echo $a

This is how you concatenate two strings.

Answer 4

Yet another approach...

> H="Hello "
> U="$H""universe."
> echo $U
Hello universe.

...and yet yet another one.

> H="Hello "
> U=$H"universe."
> echo $U
Hello universe.

Answer 5

There are voiced concerns about performance, but no data is offered. Let me suggest a simple test.

(NOTE: date on macOS does not offer nanoseconds, so this must be done on Linux.)

I have created append_test.sh on GitHub with the contents:

#!/bin/bash -e

output(){
    ptime=$ctime;
    ctime=$(date +%s.%N);
    delta=$(bc <<<"$ctime - $ptime");
    printf "%2s. %16s chars  time: %s  delta: %s\n" $n "$(bc <<<"10*(2^$n)")" $ctime $delta;
}

method1(){
    echo 'Method: a="$a$a"'
    for n in {1..32}; do a="$a$a"; output; done
}

method2(){
    echo 'Method: a+="$a"'
    for n in {1..32}; do a+="$a";  output; done
}

ctime=0; a="0123456789"; time method$1

Test 1:

$ ./append_test.sh 1
Method: a="$a$a"
 1.               20 chars  time: 1513640431.861671143  delta: 1513640431.861671143
 2.               40 chars  time: 1513640431.865036344  delta: .003365201
 3.               80 chars  time: 1513640431.868200952  delta: .003164608
 4.              160 chars  time: 1513640431.871273553  delta: .003072601
 5.              320 chars  time: 1513640431.874358253  delta: .003084700
 6.              640 chars  time: 1513640431.877454625  delta: .003096372
 7.             1280 chars  time: 1513640431.880551786  delta: .003097161
 8.             2560 chars  time: 1513640431.883652169  delta: .003100383
 9.             5120 chars  time: 1513640431.886777451  delta: .003125282
10.            10240 chars  time: 1513640431.890066444  delta: .003288993
11.            20480 chars  time: 1513640431.893488326  delta: .003421882
12.            40960 chars  time: 1513640431.897273327  delta: .003785001
13.            81920 chars  time: 1513640431.901740563  delta: .004467236
14.           163840 chars  time: 1513640431.907592388  delta: .005851825
15.           327680 chars  time: 1513640431.916233664  delta: .008641276
16.           655360 chars  time: 1513640431.930577599  delta: .014343935
17.          1310720 chars  time: 1513640431.954343112  delta: .023765513
18.          2621440 chars  time: 1513640431.999438581  delta: .045095469
19.          5242880 chars  time: 1513640432.086792464  delta: .087353883
20.         10485760 chars  time: 1513640432.278492932  delta: .191700468
21.         20971520 chars  time: 1513640432.672274631  delta: .393781699
22.         41943040 chars  time: 1513640433.456406517  delta: .784131886
23.         83886080 chars  time: 1513640435.012385162  delta: 1.555978645
24.        167772160 chars  time: 1513640438.103865613  delta: 3.091480451
25.        335544320 chars  time: 1513640444.267009677  delta: 6.163144064
./append_test.sh: fork: Cannot allocate memory

Test 2:

$ ./append_test.sh 2
Method: a+="$a"
 1.               20 chars  time: 1513640473.460480052  delta: 1513640473.460480052
 2.               40 chars  time: 1513640473.463738638  delta: .003258586
 3.               80 chars  time: 1513640473.466868613  delta: .003129975
 4.              160 chars  time: 1513640473.469948300  delta: .003079687
 5.              320 chars  time: 1513640473.473001255  delta: .003052955
 6.              640 chars  time: 1513640473.476086165  delta: .003084910
 7.             1280 chars  time: 1513640473.479196664  delta: .003110499
 8.             2560 chars  time: 1513640473.482355769  delta: .003159105
 9.             5120 chars  time: 1513640473.485495401  delta: .003139632
10.            10240 chars  time: 1513640473.488655040  delta: .003159639
11.            20480 chars  time: 1513640473.491946159  delta: .003291119
12.            40960 chars  time: 1513640473.495354094  delta: .003407935
13.            81920 chars  time: 1513640473.499138230  delta: .003784136
14.           163840 chars  time: 1513640473.503646917  delta: .004508687
15.           327680 chars  time: 1513640473.509647651  delta: .006000734
16.           655360 chars  time: 1513640473.518517787  delta: .008870136
17.          1310720 chars  time: 1513640473.533228130  delta: .014710343
18.          2621440 chars  time: 1513640473.560111613  delta: .026883483
19.          5242880 chars  time: 1513640473.606959569  delta: .046847956
20.         10485760 chars  time: 1513640473.699051712  delta: .092092143
21.         20971520 chars  time: 1513640473.898097661  delta: .199045949
22.         41943040 chars  time: 1513640474.299620758  delta: .401523097
23.         83886080 chars  time: 1513640475.092311556  delta: .792690798
24.        167772160 chars  time: 1513640476.660698221  delta: 1.568386665
25.        335544320 chars  time: 1513640479.776806227  delta: 3.116108006
./append_test.sh: fork: Cannot allocate memory

The errors indicate that my Bash got up to 335.54432 MB before it crashed. You could change the code from doubling the data to appending a constant to get a more granular graph and failure point. But I think this should give you enough information to decide whether you care. Personally, below 100 MB I don't. Your mileage may vary.

Answer 6

Despite of the special operator, +=, for concatenation, there is a simpler way to go:

foo='Hello'
foo=$foo' World'
echo $foo

Double quotes take an extra calculation time for interpretation of variables inside. Avoid it if possible.