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R Joining Strings

Joining puts strings together into one longer string. paste and paste0 both join strings in R.

Joining with a space

paste joins words with a space between them. The second print joins three words into one string.

print(paste("Hello", "World"))
print(paste("red", "green", "blue"))

A chosen separator

paste uses the sep value as the separator. Both prints join the parts with a dash.

print(paste("2026", "10", "25", sep = "-"))
print(paste("Mon", "Tue", sep = "-"))

Joining with nothing

paste0 joins each pair with nothing between the parts. The results read as single strings.

print(paste0("Hello", "World"))
print(paste0("file", "1"))

Example

first <- "Ada"
last <- "Lovelace"
print(paste(first, last))
print(paste(first, last, sep = "-"))
print(paste0(first, last))

Key points

  • paste joins strings with a space by default.
  • The sep argument in paste sets the separator between the strings.
  • paste0 joins strings with nothing between them.
  • paste adds its separator between every pair of strings.
  • A paste call returns one string.

In this example, paste joins the first and last names with a space. The sep argument swaps the space for a dash. paste0 then joins the names with nothing between them.

Note

paste can also fold a whole vector into one string with collapse, and the vectors lessons use that form later.

Try it Yourself

Edit the code, then press Run.

Running is simulated · rdrr.io R Snippets

Exercise

What does print(paste0("file", "1")) show?