SQL Server + operator

The SQL Server (Transact-SQL) + operator can be used to concatenate two or more strings together.

Syntax

string1 + string2 [ + string_n ]

Parameters

`string1`	`Required.` Specify the first string to concatenate.
`string2`	`Required.` Specify the second string to concatenate.
`string_n`	`Optional.` Specify the nth string to concatenate.

Return Value

Returns the concatenated string.

Example 1:

The example below shows how to use + operator to concatenate two or more string values.

SELECT 'Alpha' + 'Coding' + 'Skills';
Result: 'AlphaCodingSkills'

SELECT '10' + '20' + '30';
Result: '102030'

SELECT '10' + 20 + '30';
Result: '102030'

SELECT '10' + 20 + 30;
Result: '102030'

SELECT 'a' + 'b' + 'c' + 'd';
Result: 'abcd'

Example 2:

Two additional single quotes within the surrounding single quotation can be used to concatenate single quotes. See the example below:

SELECT 'Let' + '''' + 's learn SQL Server';
Result: Let's learn SQL Server

Example 3:

Consider a database table called Employee with the following records:

EmpID	FirstName	LastName
1	John	Smith
2	Marry	Knight
3	Jo	Williams
4	Kim	Fischer
5	Ramesh	Gupta
6	Huang	Zhang

In the query below, the + operator is used to concatenate records of column FirstName and column LastName.

SELECT *, FirstName + ' ' + LastName AS FullName FROM Employee;

This will produce the result as shown below:

EmpID	FirstName	LastName	FullName
1	John	Smith	John Smith
2	Marry	Knight	Marry Knight
3	Jo	Williams	Jo Williams
4	Kim	Fischer	Kim Fischer
5	Ramesh	Gupta	Ramesh Gupta
6	Huang	Zhang	Huang Zhang

❮ SQL Server Functions