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Difference between break and continue statement

Asked 2009-01-20T18:00:46.397
308

Can anyone tell me the difference between break and continue statements?

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2 Answers

75
System.out.println ("starting loop:");
for (int n = 0; n < 7; ++n)
{
    System.out.println ("in loop: " + n);
    if (n == 2) {
        continue;
    }
    System.out.println ("   survived first guard");
    if (n == 4) {
        break;
    }
    System.out.println ("   survived second guard");
    // continue at head of loop
}
// break out of loop
System.out.println ("end of loop or exit via break");

This will lead to following output:

starting loop:
in loop: 0
    survived first guard
    survived second guard
in loop: 1
    survived first guard
    survived second guard
in loop: 2
in loop: 3
    survived first guard
    survived second guard
in loop: 4
    survived first guard
end of loop or exit via break

You can label a block, not only a for-loop, and then break/continue from a nested block to an outer one. In few cases this might be useful, but in general you'll try to avoid such code, except the logic of the program is much better to understand than in the following example:

first:
for (int i = 0; i < 4; ++i) 
{
    second:
    for (int j = 0; j < 4; ++j) 
    {
        third:
        for (int k = 0; k < 4; ++k) 
        {
            System.out.println ("inner start: i+j+k " + (i + j + k));
            if (i + j + k == 5)
                continue third;
            if (i + j + k == 7)
                continue second;
            if (i + j + k == 8)
                break second;
            if (i + j + k == 9)
                break first;
            System.out.println ("inner stop:  i+j+k " + (i + j + k));
        }
    }       
}

Because it's possible, it doesn't mean you should use it.

If you want to obfuscate your code in a funny way, you don't choose a meanigful name, but http: and follow it with a comment, which looks alien, like a webadress in the source-code:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/462373
for (int i = 0; i 
answered 2012-05-21T23:12:41.543
0

Simply put: break will terminate the current loop, and continue execution at the first line after the loop ends. continue jumps back to the loop condition and keeps running the loop.

answered 2009-01-20T18:02:53.787

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