SQLite concat_ws() Function

Summary: in this tutorial, you will learn how to use the SQLite concat_ws() function to concatenate strings into a single string with a specified separator.

Introduction to the SQLite concat_ws() function #

In SQLite, the concat_ws() function allows you to concatenate multiple strings into a single string using a specified separator.

Here’s the syntax of the concat_ws() function:

concate_ws(separator, str1, str2, ...);Copy

The concat_ws() function returns a concatenation of the str1, str2, … with the specified separator.

If the separator is NULL, the concat() function returns NULL.

If all the input strings (str1, str2, …) are NULL, the concat_ws() function returns an empty string.

If any input string is NULL, the concat_ws() function uses an empty string for concatenation.

SQLite concat_ws() function examples #

Let’s take some examples of using the concat_ws() function.

1) Basic SQLite concat_ws() function examples #

The following example uses the concat_ws() function to concatenate the first and last names with a separator:

SELECT
  CONCAT_WS (', ', 'John', 'Doe') name;Copy

Output:

name
---------
John, DoeCopy

The following example uses the concat_ws() function to concatenate multiple strings into a single string and return NULL because the separator is NULL:

SELECT
  CONCAT_WS (NULL, 'Jane', 'Doe') name;Copy

Output:

name
----
nullCopy

The following example illustrates how the concat_ws() function ignores NULL input string when concatenating them:

SELECT
  CONCAT_WS (', ', 'A', NULL, 'B', 'C') alphabet;Copy

Output:

alphabet
--------
A, B, CCopy

2) Using concat_ws() function with table data #

We’ll use the emloyees table from the sample database:

The following example uses the concat_ws() function to concatenate the first and last names of employees using the space separator:

SELECT
  CONCAT_WS (' ', FirstName, LastName) AS FullName
FROM
  employees;Copy

Output:

FullName
----------------
Andrew Adams
Nancy Edwards
Jane Peacock
Margaret Park
Steve Johnson
Michael Mitchell
Robert King
Laura CallahanCopy

Summary #

• Use the SQLite concat_ws() to concatenate multiple strings into a single string using a specified separator.

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