When trying to concatenate a string and a number in Python:

answer = 42
print('The answer to life is ' + answer)

You’ll receive one of the following errors:

# python2
TypeError: cannot concatenate 'str' and 'int' objects

# python3
TypeError: Can't convert 'int' object to str implicitly

Fortunately, there are several ways to concatenate different types.

Cast to string

One approach is to convert the non-string to a string:

answer = 42
print('The answer to life is ' + str(answer))

Interpolation

Another approach is to use interpolation:

answer = 42
print('The answer to life is %d' % (answer))

The %d in this example stands for digit.

String format

The format() method is also useful:

answer = 42
print('The answer to life is {}'.format(answer))

f-string

If you’re using Python 3.6 or greater, you can use f-string:

answer = 42
print(f'The answer to life is {answer}')