Concatenation

Take a look at these lines of code. Can you determine what they do?

1. String firstName = "Diana";

2. String lastName = "Ross";

3. int birthYear = 1944;

4. System.out.println(firstName);

5. System.out.println(lastName);

6. System.out.println(firstName + lastName);

7. System.out.println("Disco Legend" + lastName);

8. System.out.println(firstName + " " + lastName + " was born in " + birthYear);

You probably figured out what that lines 1 - 3  create variables, and lines 4 and 5 print out the values stored in firstName and lastName respectfully...but what happens on line 6?

Line 6 uses the arithmetic operator (+) in a different way called concatenation.  Concatenation is the process of adding Strings together.  So line 6 concatenates firstName and lastName together resulting in the String "DianaRoss" being outputted to the console.

You should see the following output:

Diana

Ross

DianaRoss

Disco LegendRoss

Diana Ross was born in 1944

There is an issue with our concatenation output.  We do not want to display "DianaRoss", but "Diana Ross" with a space between firstName and lastName.

To accomplish this task, concatenate a space between the variables like this: System.out.println(firstName + " " + lastName);

You can concatenate any number of Strings together using the plus sign.

Your turn: Fix the program above by correcting the spacing issues using concatenation.  You can either submit a url of your forked program, or, if you fixed the code in the embedded program above, submit a screenshot.