C Break And Continue - W3Schools

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Break

You have already seen the break statement used in an earlier chapter of this tutorial. It was used to "jump out" of a switch statement.

The break statement can also be used to jump out of a loop.

This example stops the loop when i is equal to 4:

Example

int i; for (i = 0; i < 10; i++) { if (i == 4) { break; } printf("%d\n", i); } Try it Yourself »

Continue

The continue statement breaks one iteration (in the loop), if a specified condition occurs, and continues with the next iteration in the loop.

This example skips the value of 4:

Example

int i; for (i = 0; i < 10; i++) { if (i == 4) { continue; } printf("%d\n", i); } Try it Yourself »

Good to Remember:

  • break = stop the loop completely.
  • continue = skip this round, but keep looping.

Combining Break and Continue

You can also combine break and continue.

This example skips printing 2 and stops the loop at 4:

Example

int i; for (i = 0; i < 6; i++) { if (i == 2) { continue; } if (i == 4) { break; } printf("%d\n", i); }

Try it Yourself »

Break and Continue in While Loop

You can also use break and continue in while loops:

Break Example

int i = 0; while (i < 10) { if (i == 4) { break; } printf("%d\n", i); i++; } Try it Yourself »

Continue Example

int i = 0; while (i < 10) { if (i == 4) { i++; continue; } printf("%d\n", i); i++; } Try it Yourself »

Real-Life Example

Imagine processing a list of numbers where you want to skip negative values, but stop completely if you find a zero:

Example

int myNumbers[] = {3, -1, 7, 0, 9}; int length = sizeof(myNumbers) / sizeof(myNumbers[0]); int i; for (i = 0; i < length; i++) { if (myNumbers[i] < 0) { continue; // skip negative numbers } if (myNumbers[i] == 0) { break; // stop loop when zero is found } printf("%d\n", myNumbers[i]); }

Try it Yourself »

Note: Don't worry if you don't fully understand the example above. It uses an array (int numbers[] = {3, -1, 7, 0, 9};) to store the numbers, and you will learn more about arrays in the next chapter.

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