JavaBreak and Continue
Break
You have already seen thebreak statement used in an earlier chapter of this tutorial. It was used to "jump out" of aswitch statement.
Thebreak statement can also be used to jump out of aloop.
This example stops the loop wheni is equal to 4:
Example
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) { if (i == 4) { break; } System.out.println(i);}Continue
Thecontinue 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
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) { if (i == 4) { continue; } System.out.println(i);}Good to Remember:
break= stop the loop completely.continue= skip this round, but keep looping.
Combining Break and Continue
You can also combinebreak andcontinue.
This example skips printing 2 and stops the loop at 4:
Example
for (int i = 0; i < 6; i++) { if (i == 2) { continue; } if (i == 4) { break; } System.out.println(i);}Break and Continue in While Loop
You can also usebreak andcontinue in while loops:
Break Example
int i = 0;while (i < 10) { System.out.println(i); i++; if (i == 4) { break; }}Continue Example
int i = 0;while (i < 10) { if (i == 4) { i++; continue; } System.out.println(i); i++;}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[] numbers = {3, -1, 7, 0, 9};for (int n : numbers) { if (n < 0) { continue; // skip negative numbers } if (n == 0) { break; // stop loop when zero is found } System.out.println(n);}Note: Don't worry if you don't fully understand the example above. It uses anarray (int[] numbers = {3, -1, 7, 0, 9};) to store the numbers, and you will learn more aboutarrays in the next chapter.
