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Break and Continue Statements
break Statement
In C, the break statement is used to complete the implementation of the closes enclosing loop in which it appears. We have already seen its use in the switch statement. The break statement is mostly used with for, while, and do–while loops. When the compiler encounters a break statement, the control passes to the statement that follows the loop in which the break statement appears. Its syntax is
quite simple, just type keyword break followed by a semi-colon.
break;
The example given below shows the manner in which break statement is used to terminate the loop in which it is embedded.
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
int i = 0;
while(i<=10)
{
if (i==5)
break;
printf("\t %d", i);
i = i + 1;
}
return 0;
}
Output
0 1 2 3 4
As soon as i becomes equal to 5, the break statement is executed and the control jumps to the statement following the while loop.
Hence, the break statement is used to exit a loop from any point within its body, bypassing its normal termination expression.
continue Statement
Like the break statement, the continue statement can only appear in the body of a loop. When the compiler encounters a continue statement, then the rest of the statements in the loop are skipped and the control is unconditionally transferred to the loop-continuation portion of the nearest enclosing loop. Its syntax is quite simple, just type keyword continue followed by a semi-colon.
continue;
Again like the break statement, the continue statement cannot be used without an enclosing for, while, or do–while loop. When the continue statement is encountered in the while loop and in the
do–while loop, the control is transferred to the code that tests the controlling expression. However, if placed within a for loop, the continue statement causes a branch to the code that updates the loop variable. For example, consider the following code:
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
int i;
for(i=0; i<= 10; i++)
{
if (i==5)
continue;
printf("\t %d", i);
}
return 0;
}
Output
0 1 2 3 4 6 7 8 9 10
Note that the code is meant to print numbers from 0 to 10. But as soon as i becomes equal to 5, the continue statement is encountered, so the printf() statement is skipped and the control
passes to the expression that increments the value of i.
Hence, we conclude that the continue statement is somewhat the opposite of the break statement.
It forces the next iteration of the loop to take place, skipping any code in between itself and the test condition of the loop. It is generally used to restart a statement sequence when an error occurs.