diff --git a/phpBB/includes/template/context.php b/phpBB/includes/template/context.php
index 65a3531bc5..ec09da1cf3 100644
--- a/phpBB/includes/template/context.php
+++ b/phpBB/includes/template/context.php
@@ -53,7 +53,9 @@ class phpbb_template_context
 	}
 
 	/**
-	* Assign a single variable to a single key
+	* Assign a single scalar value to a single key.
+	*
+	* Value can be a string, an integer or a boolean.
 	*
 	* @param string $varname Variable name
 	* @param string $varval Value to assign to variable
@@ -65,6 +67,21 @@ class phpbb_template_context
 		return true;
 	}
 
+	/**
+	* Append text to the string value stored in a key.
+	*
+	* Text is appended using the string concatenation operator (.).
+	*
+	* @param string $varname Variable name
+	* @param string $varval Value to append to variable
+	*/
+	public function append_var($varname, $varval)
+	{
+		$this->rootref[$varname] = (isset($this->rootref[$varname]) ? $this->rootref[$varname] : '') . $varval;
+
+		return true;
+	}
+
 	/**
 	* Returns a reference to template data array.
 	*
diff --git a/phpBB/includes/template/template.php b/phpBB/includes/template/template.php
index 9297b759ac..bac5445511 100644
--- a/phpBB/includes/template/template.php
+++ b/phpBB/includes/template/template.php
@@ -378,7 +378,9 @@ class phpbb_template
 	}
 
 	/**
-	* Assign a single variable to a single key
+	* Assign a single scalar value to a single key.
+	*
+	* Value can be a string, an integer or a boolean.
 	*
 	* @param string $varname Variable name
 	* @param string $varval Value to assign to variable
@@ -388,6 +390,19 @@ class phpbb_template
 		$this->context->assign_var($varname, $varval);
 	}
 
+	/**
+	* Append text to the string value stored in a key.
+	*
+	* Text is appended using the string concatenation operator (.).
+	*
+	* @param string $varname Variable name
+	* @param string $varval Value to append to variable
+	*/
+	public function append_var($varname, $varval)
+	{
+		$this->context->append_var($varname, $varval);
+	}
+
 	// Docstring is copied from phpbb_template_context method with the same name.
 	/**
 	* Assign key variable pairs from an array to a specified block