You can use the paste() function in R to quickly concatenate multiple strings together:

paste(string1, string2, string3 , sep = " ")

The following examples show how to use this function in practice.

Example 1: Concatenate String Vectors

Suppose we have the following strings in R:

#create three string variables
a <- "hey"
b <- "there"
c <- "friend"

We can use the paste() function to quickly concatenate these three strings into one string:

#concatenate the three strings into one string
d <- paste(a, b, c)

#view result
d

[1] "hey there friend"

The three strings have been concatenated into one string, separated by spaces.

We can also use a different value for the separator by supplying a different value to the sep argument:

#concatenate the three strings into one string, separated by dashes
d <- paste(a, b, c, sep = "-")

[1] "hey-there-friend"

Example 2: Concatenate String Columns in Data Frame

Suppose we have the following data frame in R:

#create data frame
df <- data.frame(first=c('Andy', 'Bob', 'Carl', 'Doug'),
                 last=c('Smith', 'Miller', 'Johnson', 'Rogers'),
                 points=c(99, 90, 86, 88))

#view data frame
df

  first    last points
1  Andy   Smith     99
2   Bob  Miller     90
3  Carl Johnson     86
4  Doug  Rogers     88

We can use the paste() function to concatenate the “first” and “last” columns into a new column called “name”:

#concatenate 'first' and 'last' name columns into one column
df$name = paste(df$first, df$last)

#view updated data frame
df

  first    last points         name
1  Andy   Smith     99   Andy Smith
2   Bob  Miller     90   Bob Miller
3  Carl Johnson     86 Carl Johnson
4  Doug  Rogers     88  Doug Rogers

Notice that the strings in the “first” and “last” columns have been concatenated in the “name” column.

Additional Resources