8 Powerful Ways to Concatenate Strings in Python

In Python, there are many ways to concatenate strings, and this article provides a comprehensive overview.

Plus (+) concatenation

Use the + operator:

>> a, b = 'hello', ' world'
>>> a + b
'hello world'

Comma (,) concatenation

Use a comma, which works only with print and creates a tuple when assigned:

>> a, b = 'hello', ' world'
>>> print(a, b)
hello  world

>> a, b
('hello', ' world')

Direct concatenation

Simply place string literals together (with or without spaces):

print('hello' ' world')
print('hello''world')

Percent (%) formatting

Before Python 2.6, % was the only formatting operator and can also be used for concatenation:

print('%s %s' % ('hello', 'world'))

format() method

The format method, introduced in Python 2.6, replaces % and can concatenate strings:

print('{}{}'.format('hello', ' world'))

join() method

The built‑in join method concatenates elements of a sequence:

print('-'.join(['aa', 'bb', 'cc']))

f‑string

Python 3.6 introduced formatted string literals (f‑strings), an evolution of % and format:

>> aa, bb = 'hello', 'world'
>>> f'{aa} {bb}'
'hello world'

Star (*) operator

Repeating a string with the * operator:

>> aa = 'hello '
>>> aa * 3
'hello hello hello '

Summary

When concatenating a small number of strings

Prefer the + operator. If performance matters and you are on Python 3.6+, use f‑strings for better readability:

a = f'Name:{name} Age:{age} Gender:{gender}'
b = 'Name:' + name + ' Age:' + age + ' Gender:' + gender

When concatenating many strings

Use join or f‑strings, depending on the Python version and readability requirements.

Reference

Source: “You don’t know Python | The secret of string concatenation” – https://juejin.im/post/5b350624f265da5954426713