4.25 cat - Concatenate Character String

Format: cat( $token,str_1,str_2,\cdots$ )

Concatenate the specified $str_ i$ in order using $token$ as the delimiter to create a character string. If an empty character "" is specified, the list of strings are simply concatenated.

Examples

Example 1: Basic Example

Concatenate 3 columns str1,str2,str3 with the inclusion of "#" as delimiter token in between characters.

$ more dat1.csv
id,str1,str2,str3
1,abc,def,ghi
2,A,,CDE
3,,,
4,,,XY
$ mcal c='cat("#",$s{str1},$s{str2},$s{str3})' a=rsl i=dat1.csv o=rsl1.csv
#END# kgcal a=rsl c=cat("#",$s{str1},$s{str2},$s{str3}) i=dat1.csv o=rsl1.csv
$ more rsl1.csv
id,str1,str2,str3,rsl
1,abc,def,ghi,abc#def#ghi
2,A,,CDE,A##CDE
3,,,,##
4,,,XY,##XY

Example 2: Empty token

$ mcal c='cat("",$s{str1},$s{str2},$s{str3})' a=rsl i=dat1.csv o=rsl2.csv
#END# kgcal a=rsl c=cat("",$s{str1},$s{str2},$s{str3}) i=dat1.csv o=rsl2.csv
$ more rsl2.csv
id,str1,str2,str3,rsl
1,abc,def,ghi,abcdefghi
2,A,,CDE,ACDE
3,,,,
4,,,XY,XY

Example 3: Example using wildcard

Use wildcard to specify columns names that start with str (str1,str2,str3) such as str*.

$ mcal c='cat("",$s{str*})' a=rsl i=dat1.csv o=rsl3.csv
#END# kgcal a=rsl c=cat("",$s{str*}) i=dat1.csv o=rsl3.csv
$ more rsl3.csv
id,str1,str2,str3,rsl
1,abc,def,ghi,abcdefghi
2,A,,CDE,ACDE
3,,,,
4,,,XY,XY