Concatenate. Two or more strings can be combined into one. This is called concatenation. In Ruby we use the plus operator—we add strings together. This yields a new string.
Syntax notes. We can use "<<" to append strings, and "*" to duplicate strings. Most programs do not need complex concatenations, but they are sometimes helpful.
Concat example. To begin we concatenate 2 strings. We add 2 string variables, value1 and value2, along with the "/" literal. We display the result.
# Two string values.
value1 = "Ruby"
value2 = "Python"# Concatenate the string values.
value3 = value1 + "/" + value2;
# Display the result.
puts value3Ruby/Python
Multiplication. Suppose we want to duplicate a string 2 or more times. We may want to repeat a pattern or word. We can multiply a string in Ruby.
# Use multiplication to concatenate a string many times.
result = "ba" + "na" * 2
puts result
# Write the string 3 times.
puts (result + " ") * 3banana
banana banana banana
Append. Ruby has a special syntax for string appends. It uses the "<<" operator. We can use this operator to combine two or more strings. Here we append twice to a single string.
Tip The append operator changes the value of the string. So after we append once, the actual string data is changed.
Tip 2 If you want to retain the original data, you can copy a string by assigning another string reference to it.
value = "cat"
puts value
# Append this string (surrounded by spaces).
value << " in "
puts value
# Append another string.
value << "the hat"
puts valuecat
cat in
cat in the hat
A summary. We can use concatenation and append on string variables and string literals. Many Ruby programs will need to append or combine strings.
Dot Net Perls is a collection of tested code examples. Pages are continually updated to stay current, with code correctness a top priority.
Sam Allen is passionate about computer languages. In the past, his work has been recommended by Apple and Microsoft and he has studied computers at a selective university in the United States.