String concatentation in the Bourne Again Shell

String concatenation must be different in every lanaguage, or so it seems, and Bash is no different! You can string concat just by putting too strings next to each other.

> echo "a""b"
ab 

Its ok if one of these strings is a variable.

> a = "x" 
> echo $a"b"
xb

Its ok if you put a double quoted string next to a single quoted string.

> echo 'a'"b"
ab

Its ok if you put spaces in between the strings, but that space now will be part of the new string.

> echo "a" "b"
a b

But multiple spaces in between strings will be squashed to one string.

> echo "a"      "b"
a b

This works when setting a variable too, but only surrounded by parens.

> c=('a'      'b')
> echo $c
a b

Don't worry about the parens though when they are right next to each other.

> c = "a""b"
> echo $c
ab