Concatenating strings in Go

Clive B.

—October 15, 2024

The ProblemThe Problem

You don’t know how to combine multiple strings (for example, "42" and "Example Avenue") into a single string ("42 Example Avenue".).

The SolutionThe Solution

Depending on your requirements, you can concatenate strings by:

• Using the + operator
• Joining a slice of strings
• Using fmt.Sprintf
• Using strings.Builder

Using the + OperatorUsing the + Operator

The simplest way to combine strings, especially when concatenating just a few values, is to use the + operator:

print("42" + " " + "Example Avenue") // Prints "42 Example Avenue".

Joining a Slice of Strings in GoJoining a Slice of Strings in Go

If you want to join your strings with a common separator or have too many strings to concatenate, you can use the strings.Join function:

package main

import "strings"

func main() {
    address := []string{"1 Sample Apartments", "42 Example Avenue", "Model Country"}
    print(strings.Join(address, ", ")) // Prints "1 Sample Apartments, 42 Example Avenue, Model Country".
}

Concatenating Different Types Into Strings in GoConcatenating Different Types Into Strings in Go

The Go fmt package offers simple, C-like string formatting, with various verbs (variable placeholders) that make it easier to work with different types. This is especially useful when joining multiple types into the same string.

However, the fmt.Sprintf function uses something called reflection to enable string formatting, which is convenient but doesn’t perform as well as direct type conversion.

package main

import "fmt"

func main() {
    var (
        building string = "1 Sample Apartments"
        street   string = "Example Avenue"
        number   int    = 42
    )

    // `%d` is for digit, and `%s` is for string.
    address := fmt.Sprintf("%s, %d %s", building, number, street)
    print(address) // Prints "1 Sample Apartments, 42 Example Avenue".
}

High-Performance String Concatenation in GoHigh-Performance String Concatenation in Go

If you wish to avoid the performance drawbacks of using fmt.Sprintf, you can use the strings.Builder.

Although the + operator is faster than the fmt.Sprintf function, it isn’t the most efficient choice. Because strings are immutable in Go, every time + is called, Go allocates the entire resulting string to a new location in memory, which can waste time.

The Go strings.Builder minimizes memory copying, and has a nice API to boot.

package main

import "strings"

func main() {
    address := []string{"1 Sample Apartments", "42 Example Avenue", "Model Country"}

    var b strings.Builder
    for index, value := range address {
        // Prepend with a comma and a space if it's not the first item.
        if index > 0 {
            b.WriteString(", ")
        }

        b.WriteString(value)
    }

    print(b.String()) // Prints "1 Sample Apartments, 42 Example Avenue, Model Country".
}

Interestingly, strings.Join uses a strings.Builder under the hood.

Further ReadingFurther Reading

• The Go fmt package documentation
• The Go strings package documentation
• The Laws of Reflection Go blog post