SQLite: String and Column Concatenation using SQLite

Problem: In MySQL, it is possible to join the contents of several columns using CONCAT. It is even possible to include arbitrary strings to the concatenation. When trying CONCAT in SQLite, it only returns an error message: SQLite does not know the CONCAT command. Nevertheless, also with SQLite it is possible to join several strings and columns to display them together as a result.

Solution: The operator for concatenation in SQLite is ||. So, if we want to retrieve the columns "col1" and "col2" from the table "tab" and output their contents in only one column in the result, we can use the following query for this:

SELECT col1 || col2 FROM tab

With this, you can join as many columns as you like. Additionally, you can also add arbitrary other strings and characters:

SELECT 'Column 1: ' || col1 || ', Column 2: ' || col2 FROM tab

This creates an output of the form "Column 1: <contents of col1>, Column 2: <contents of col2>".