How to concatenate strings in SQL

Learn how to concatenate strings in SQL with examples and explanations from SQLPad.

Problem

You need to concatenate, or join, two or more strings together in a SQL query.

Sample Data

Let's imagine we have a table called "users" with the following data:

id	first_name	last_name
1	John	Doe
2	Jane	Doe
3	Mary	Johnson

And we want to concatenate the 'first_name' and 'last_name' fields to display full names.

MySQL Solution

SELECT CONCAT(first_name, ' ', last_name) AS 'Full Name'
FROM users;

Explanation - MySQL

In MySQL, the CONCAT() function is used to concatenate two or more strings. We're using it to combine 'first_name' and 'last_name' fields, with a space (' ') in between to separate them. The result is aliased as 'Full Name'. For each row in 'users' table, it will return the full name.

PostgreSQL Solution

SELECT first_name || ' ' || last_name AS "Full Name"
FROM users;

Explanation - PostgreSQL

In PostgreSQL, the || operator is used to concatenate two or more strings. We're using it to combine 'first_name' and 'last_name' fields, with a space (' ') in between to separate them. The result is aliased as 'Full Name'. For each row in 'users' table, it will return the full name.