How to Concatenate Strings in MATLAB: Simple Syntax and Examples

In MATLAB, you can concatenate strings using square brackets [] to join them directly or the strcat function to combine strings without spaces. For example, ['Hello', ' ', 'World'] joins strings with a space, while strcat('Hello', 'World') joins without spaces.

Syntax

There are two common ways to concatenate strings in MATLAB:

• Using square brackets []: Joins strings or character arrays by placing them inside square brackets.
• Using strcat function: Concatenates strings and removes trailing whitespace.

matlab

concatenated = ['string1', 'string2'];
concatenated = strcat('string1', 'string2');

Example

This example shows how to join two strings with and without spaces using both methods.

matlab

str1 = 'Hello';
str2 = 'World';

% Using square brackets with space
result1 = [str1, ' ', str2];

% Using strcat (no space added)
result2 = strcat(str1, str2);

% Display results
result1
result2

Output

result1 =

    'Hello World'

result2 =

    'HelloWorld'

Common Pitfalls

One common mistake is expecting strcat to add spaces automatically; it does not. Also, mixing string arrays ("text") and character arrays ('text') without conversion can cause errors.

Use square brackets for simple concatenation with spaces, and convert string arrays to character arrays if needed.

matlab

wrong = strcat('Hello', ' ', 'World'); % This removes the space
correct = ['Hello', ' ', 'World'];

Quick Reference

Method	Description	Example
Square Brackets []	Concatenate strings or chars with exact spacing	['Hi', ' ', 'There']
strcat	Concatenate strings removing trailing spaces	strcat('Hi', 'There')
+ Operator (string arrays)	Concatenate string arrays with + operator	"Hi" + " There"

Key Takeaways

Use square brackets [] to concatenate strings with spaces exactly as you want.

The strcat function joins strings but removes trailing spaces, so add spaces manually if needed.

Be careful mixing string arrays (double quotes) and character arrays (single quotes); convert if necessary.

For string arrays, you can also use the + operator to concatenate strings easily.

Always check the output type to avoid unexpected results in your code.