Konkatinaatio

Konkatinaatio, or concatenation, is the operation of joining two or more items end-to-end to form a single sequence. In computing, this typically refers to string concatenation, where two strings are merged to produce a new string. In linguistics and related fields, the term can describe the process of linking units such as morphemes or words into larger units. The concept is foundational in data processing and text manipulation, as well as in the description of certain linguistic phenomena.

In programming languages, concatenation is often implemented with a dedicated operator or function. Examples include the plus sign (+) in several languages, the dot operator in some, and dedicated functions such as concat or join. Because strings are frequently immutable in many languages, naive repetition of concatenation can create inefficiencies by producing intermediate strings; alternative approaches include building with a mutable buffer, or using join methods that take a list of strings and combine them in a single pass.

In SQL and data processing, CONCAT or similar functions merge columns or expressions into a single string. In natural language processing, concatenation can be used to assemble tokens into sequences for analysis, though it must be distinguished from other processes such as fusion or blending that alter unit boundaries.

Etymology: the term derives from Latin concatenatio, meaning "to chain together". See also: concatenation (math), string handling, join.