.. _concat:

======
concat
====== 

Concatenates two or more strings

Description
~~~~~~~~~~~
The fn:concat function requires at least two arguments (which can be the empty 
sequence), and accepts an unlimited number of additional arguments. This is the 
only XQueryXPath 2.0 function that has a flexible number of arguments, for 
compatibility with XPath 1.0. Arguments that are not of type xs:string will be 
cast to xs:string.

The function does not accept a sequence of values, just individual atomic values 
passed as separate arguments. To concatenate a sequence of strings, use the 
fn:string-join function.

.. list-table::
   :widths: 40 60
   :header-rows: 1

   * - **Parameters**
     - **Description**
   * - arg1:string()
     - the first value to concatenate
   * - arg2:string()
     - the second value to concatenate
   * - arg3:string()
     - the (optional) third value to concatenate
   * - argN:string()
     - any number of arguments are allowed

Examples
~~~~~~~~
.. list-table::
   :widths: 50 50
   :header-rows: 1

   * - **XPath**
     - **Results**
   * - concat('a')
     - Error XPST0017
   * - concat('a', 'b')
     - ab
   * - concat('a', 'b', 'c')
     - abc
   * - concat('a', (), 'b', '', 'c')
     - abc
   * - concat( ('a', 'b', 'c') )
     - Error XPST0017
   * - concat('a', <x>b</x>, 'c')
     - abc

See Also
~~~~~~~~

.. toctree::
   :titlesonly:
   :glob:

* :ref:`string-join`.