String Operators
There are two string operators. The first is the concatenation operator ('.'), which returns the concatenation of its right and left arguments. The second is the concatenating assignment operator ('.='), which appends the argument on the right side to the argument on the left side. Please read Assignment Operators for more information.
<?php
$a = "Hello ";
$b = $a . "World!"; // now $b contains "Hello World!"
$a = "Hello ";
$a .= "World!"; // now $a contains "Hello World!"
?>
See also the manual sections on the String type and String functions.