I read somewehere (I thought on codinghorror) that it is bad practice to add strings together as if they are numbers, since like numbers, strings cannot be changed. Thus, adding them together creates a new string. So, I was wondering, what is the best way to add two strings together, when focusing on performance?

Which of these four is better, or is there another way which is better?

//Note that normally at least one of these two strings is variable
$str1 = 'Hello ';
$str2 = 'World!'; 
$output1 = $str1.$str2; //This is said to be bad

$str1 = 'Hello ';
$output2 = $str1.'World!'; //Also bad

$str1 = 'Hello';
$str2 = 'World!';
$output3 = sprintf('%s %s', $str1, $str2); //Good?
//This last one is probaply more common as:
//$output = sprintf('%s %s', 'Hello', 'World!');

$str1 = 'Hello ';
$str2 = '{a}World!';
$output4 = str_replace('{a}', $str1, $str2);

Does it even matter?