What would be the most concise/readable way in a velocity template to join multiple fields with a separator while leaving out empty or null Strings without adding excess separators? As an example we have a tooltip or appointments that goes like: Appointment ($number) [with $employee] [-] [$remarks] [-] [$roomToVisit] Where I used brackets to indicate optional data. When filled in it would normally show as Appointment (3) with John - ballroom - serve Java coffee When $remarks is empty but $roomToVisit is not, this becomes: Appointment (3) with John - ballroom When $remarks is "serve Java coffee" but $roomToVisit is empty we get: Appointment (3) with John - serve Java coffee When both are empty: Appointment (3) with John Bonus: also make the field prefix optional. When only $employee is empty we should get: Appointment (2) serve Java coffee - ballroom Ideally I would like the velocity template to look very similar to the first code box. If this is not possible, how would you achieve this with a minimum of distracting code tags? Similar ideas (first is much more verbose): Join with intelligent separators velocity: do something except in last loop iteration