How do I concatenate strings and variables in PowerShell?

Suppose I have the following snippet:

<!-- language: lang-powershell -->

$assoc = New-Object PSObject -Property @{
Id = 42
Name = "Slim Shady"
Owner = "Eminem"
}

Write-Host $assoc.Id + " - " + $assoc.Name + " - " + $assoc.Owner

I'd expect this snippet to show:

> `42 - Slim Shady - Eminem`

But instead it shows:

> `42 + - + Slim Shady + - + Eminem`

Which makes me think the `+` operator isn't appropriate for concatenating strings and variables.

How should you approach this with PowerShell?

These answers all seem very complicated. If you are using this in a PowerShell script you can simply do this:

$name = 'Slim Shady'
Write-Host 'My name is'$name

It will output

> My name is Slim Shady

Note how a space is put between the words for you

Write-Host "$($assoc.Id) - $($assoc.Name) - $($assoc.Owner)"

See the [Windows PowerShell Language Specification Version 3.0][1], p34, sub-expressions expansion.


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I just want to bring another way to do this using .NET [String.Format][1]:

$name = "Slim Shady"
Write-Host ([string]::Format("My name is {0}", $name))


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Concatenate strings just like in the DOS days. This is a big deal for logging so here you go:

$strDate = Get-Date
$strday = "$($strDate.Year)$($strDate.Month)$($strDate.Day)"

Write-Output "$($strDate.Year)$($strDate.Month)$($strDate.Day)"
Write-Output $strday

I seem to struggle with this (and many other unintuitive things) every time I use PowerShell after time away from it, so I now opt for:

[string]::Concat("There are ", $count, " items in the list")

[Write-Host][1] can concatenate like this too:

Write-Host $assoc.Id" - "$assoc.Name" - "$assoc.Owner

This is the simplest way, IMHO.

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You can also get access to C#/.NET methods, and the following also works:
```
$string1 = "Slim Shady, "
$string2 = "The real slim shady"

$concatString = [System.String]::Concat($string1, $string2)

Output:

Slim Shady, The real slim shady
```

You need to place the expression in parentheses to stop them being treated as different parameters to the cmdlet:

Write-Host ($assoc.Id + " - " + $assoc.Name + " - " + $assoc.Owner)

One way is:

Write-Host "$($assoc.Id) - $($assoc.Name) - $($assoc.Owner)"

Another one is:

Write-Host ("{0} - {1} - {2}" -f $assoc.Id,$assoc.Name,$assoc.Owner )

Or just (but I don't like it ;) ):

Write-Host $assoc.Id " - " $assoc.Name " - " $assoc.Owner