Double forward slashes after defining UPLOADS in wp-config.php

Example: define( ‘UPLOADS’, ‘wp-content/uploads’ );

You are putting it at the root instead of under a folder? Why do you want to move the uploads folder? // in programming is usually how you display a / in a string or is the return of an empty value.

By default, WordPress will put media uploads under https://website.com/wp-content/uploads/

I’d like a shorter URL because the wp-content part in the URL is pretty useless from the users point of view.

With the define( 'UPLOADS', 'files' ); line in the wp-config.php, WordPress puts media uploads under https://website.com/files/

This is the behavior I want. However, the URLs of the uploads have an additional forwards slash added to them, which is undesirable, eg.: https://website.com/files//img.png

I’ve Googled some and changed this line:
define( 'UPLOADS', 'files' );
to
define( 'UPLOADS', ''.'files' );

And the extra forward slash from the URLs appears to be gone. URLs are now correct, eg.: https://website.com/files/img.png

I’m not sure why or how it works. Would be really nice if someone knowledgeable could confirm if this is indeed the correct and reliable fix for this issue.