Which is faster: string concatenation on the database level, or the application level?

Question

I have a simple query in DQL that selects 3 columns:

        $qb->select("c.zip_code, c.name, s.state")
           ->where("c.zip_code LIKE :input"); 

My desired output is

"[c.zip_code], [c.name], [s.state]"

Currently, I'm concatenating strings on the PHP level to get the desired string.

Is it faster to do it on the database level by using the CONCAT() function?

Answer 1

This isn't really a point on which optimisation is relevant. You should be conserned with which one is more readable/practical, personally I would do it on PHP level.