The +
operator doesn’t just add two numbers, it can also “add” two strings! The process of combining two strings is called string concatenation. Performing string concatenation creates a brand new string comprised of the first string’s contents followed by the second string’s contents (without any added space in-between).
greeting_text = "Hey there!" question_text = "How are you doing?" full_text = greeting_text + question_text # Prints "Hey there!How are you doing?" print(full_text)
In this sample of code, we create two variables that hold strings and then concatenate them. But we notice that the result was missing a space between the two, let’s add the space in-between using the same concatenation operator!
full_text = greeting_text + " " + question_text # Prints "Hey there! How are you doing?" print(full_text)
Now the code prints the message we expected.
If you want to concatenate a string with a number you will need to make the number a string first, using the str()
function. If you’re trying to print()
a numeric variable you can use commas to pass it as a different argument rather than converting it to a string.
birthday_string = "I am " age = 10 birthday_string_2 = " years old today!" # Concatenating an integer with strings is possible if we turn the integer into a string first full_birthday_string = birthday_string + str(age) + birthday_string_2 # Prints "I am 10 years old today!" print(full_birthday_string) # If we just want to print an integer # we can pass a variable as an argument to # print() regardless of whether # it is a string. # This also prints "I am 10 years old today!" print(birthday_string, age, birthday_string_2)
Using str()
we can convert variables that are not strings to strings and then concatenate them. But we don’t need to convert a number to a string for it to be an argument to a print statement.
Instructions
Concatenate the strings and save the message they form in the variable message
.
Now uncomment the print statement and run your code to see the result in the terminal!