In this article, you'll learn the different methods of appending strings in Python.

Another term commonly used when talking about appending strings is concatenation. So you'll often see these terms — append and concatenate — used interchangeably.

Either way, to append or concatenate strings means to add or join the value of one string to another string.  

Let's take a look at the different ways you can do this with simple code examples.

How to Append a String in Python Using the + Operator

You can use the + operator to append two or more strings. Here's an example:

first_name = "John"
last_name = "Doe"

print(first_name + last_name)
# JohnDoe

In the example above, we created two string variables – first_name and last_name. They had values of "John" and "Doe", respectively.

To append these variables, we used the + operator: first_name + last_name.

You'll notice in the output that we got the two variables joined together without any spacing: JohnDoe.

You can add a space after the first_name value: "John ". Or before the last_name value: " Doe". That is: 

first_name = "John "
last_name = "Doe"

print(first_name + last_name)
# John Doe

You can also add spacing using quotation marks while appending the strings. Here's how: 

first_name = "John "
last_name = "Doe"

print(first_name + "" + last_name)
# John Doe

How to Append a String in Python Using the join() Method

Another way you can append strings in Python is by using the join() method.

The join() method takes an iterable object — Lists, Tuples, Strings, Sets, Dictionaries —  as its parameter. Here's what the syntax looks like:

string.join(iterable_object)

Here's an example showing how use can append strings using the join() method: 

first_name = "John"
last_name = "Doe"

print("".join([first_name, last_name]))
# JohnDoe

Here, we passed in our two string variables as parameters to the join() method.

You'll also notice that the variables were nested in square brackets [], making it a list of strings: [first_name, last_name]. This is because the method only takes one parameter which must be an iterable object.

One strange thing about the join() method is the quotation marks that come before the period/dot.

You can use these quotation marks to state what appears between the items in your iterable object values. Let me demonstrate with an example. 

first_name = "John"
last_name = "Doe"

print("#".join([first_name, last_name]))
# John#Doe

In the example above, I added the # symbol to the quotation marks: "#".join([first_name, last_name]). This # was added between our strings: John#Doe.

In the last section, we had to use different methods to add spacing between our strings. You can achieve that easily by adding a space in the quotation marks that precedes the join() method: 

first_name = "John"
last_name = "Doe"

print(" ".join([first_name, last_name]))
# John Doe

How to Append a String in Python Using the String format() Method

Here's what the syntax for the string format() method looks like: 

{}.format(value)

Basically, the string format method takes the value parameter in the syntax above and inserts it into the curly bracket. The resulting value will be a string.

Here's an example:

first_name = "John"
last_name = "Doe"

print("{} {}".format(first_name, last_name))
# John Doe

Since we provided two curly brackets in the example and two parameters (first_name and last_name), the string format() method inserts the strings into their respective curly brackets.

You can add more strings in the quotation marks where you find the curly brackets. This will not alter the string format() method's operation — the strings will still be inserted into the curly brackets. That is: 

first_name = "John"
last_name = "Doe"

print("My name is {} {}".format(first_name, last_name))
# My name is John Doe

How to Append a String in Python Using the f-string

This method is pretty easy to understand. The f-string was introduced in Python to make string formatting and interpolation easier. But you can also use it to append strings.

To use the f-string, you simply write an f followed by quotation marks: f"". You can then insert strings and variable names between the quotation marks. All variable names must be nested in curly brackets.

Here's an example:

first_name = "John"
last_name = "Doe"

print(f"{first_name} {last_name}")
# John Doe

Summary

In this article, we discussed the different methods you can use to append strings in Python.

To append a string to another means to join them together.

As discussed in this article, along with code examples, you can append strings in Python using the + operator, the join() method, the string() format method, and the f-string.

Happy coding!