| catenation (+) | joining together strings |
| Syntax | A catenation is:
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| Description | Two strings (stringExpns), char or char(n) values can be joined together (catenated) using the + operator.
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| Example |
var lastName, wholeName : string
lastName := "Austere"
wholeName := "Nancy" + " " + lastName
% The three strings Nancy, a blank and Austere
% catenated together to make the string
% "Nancy Austere". This string becomes the
% value of wholeName
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| Details | The length of a string catenation is limited to 255 characters. Catenation is sometimes called concatenation. Catenation can also be applied to char and char(n) values. See char and char(n). If either operand, s or t in s + t, is a string or a dynamic char(n) (length not known at compile time), the result type is string. Otherwise (when both s and t are char or non-dynamic char(n)) the result type is char(n). The result of catenation is considered to be a compile time value if both operands are compile time values. If both operands have the type char or char(n) neither of which is a dynamic char(n), the result is of type char(n), which is also of a non dynamic type. This allows the creation of very long char(n) values that can effectively span line boundaries using catenation to join lines. If either operand is a dynamic type or a string type, the catenation produces a string, whose length is limited to 255 characters.
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| See also | substrings (for separating a strings into parts), repeat (for making repeated catenations), string type, length, and index (to determine where one string is located inside another). See also string, char, char(n), explicitStringConstant, explicitCharConstant, substring and length.
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