how to concatenate string variables into a third?

Question

I need to concatenate two strings in bash, so that:

string1=hello
string2=world

mystring=string1+string2

echo mystring should produce

helloworld

Terminal command join could also do the thing for you. – Léo Léopold Hertz 준영 Apr 19 '15 at 08:07 — Léo Léopold Hertz 준영, Apr 19 '15 at 08:07

score 59 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 29 '11 at 13:34

59

You don't need to use {} unless you're going to use bash variable parameters or immediate append a character that would be valid as part of the identifier. You also don't need to use double quotes unless you parameters will include special characters.

x=foo
y=bar
z=$x$y        # $z is now "foobar"
z="$x$y"      # $z is still "foobar"
z="$xand$y"   # does not work
z="${x}and$y" # does work, "fooandbar"
z="$x and $y" # does work, "foo and bar"

answered Mar 29 '11 at 13:34

khamer

699

2

This is what I was looking for [z="$xand$y" # does not work .....
z="${x}and$y" # does work, "fooandbar"]. Thanks.
– blokeish May 19 '17 at 07:20

score 43 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 29 '11 at 09:54

43

simply concatenate the variables:

mystring="$string1$string2"

answered Mar 29 '11 at 09:54

SiegeX

8,859

score 20 · Answer 3 · edited Mar 11 '13 at 20:09

20

In case you need to concatenate variables with literal strings:

string1=hello
string2=world
mystring="some ${string1} arbitrary ${string2} text"

echo $mystring will produce:

some hello arbitrary world text

edited Mar 11 '13 at 20:09

mariux

291

answered Mar 29 '11 at 10:52

phunehehe

20,240

6

You can use the ${var} format any time you like, but you only need it when $var is to be immediately followed by another valid variable-name character... eg: $vararbitary will interpret a variable named "vararbitary", but you can get around it by using ${var}arbitary .... oops, I just saw khamer's abswer.. but I may as well leave the comment here. – Peter.O Mar 29 '11 at 15:32

score 12 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 11 '13 at 18:20

If you want to concatenate a lot of variables you can also use += to append strings.. This may increase readability..

mystring=${string1}
mystring+=${string2}
mystring+=${string3}
mystring+=${string4}
echo ${mystring}

As mentioned by other answers the {} are not needed here but I personally always use them to avoid some syntax errors.

+= can also be used to append values to arrays: array+=($b).

how to concatenate string variables into a third?

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