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The break Statement
We have already met break in the discussion of the switch statement. It is used to exit from a loop or a switch, control passing to the first statement beyond the loop or a switch.
With loops, break can be used to force an early exit from the loop, or to implement a loop with a test to exit in the middle of the loop body. A break within a loop should always be protected within an if statement which provides the test to control the exit condition.
The continue Statement
This is similar to break but is encountered less frequently. It only works within loops where its effect is to force an immediate jump to the loop control statement.
In a while loop, jump to the test statement.
- In a do while loop, jump to the test statement.
- In a for loop, jump to the test, and perform the iteration.
Like a break, continue should be protected by an if statement. You are unlikely to use it very often. To better understand the use of break and continue let us examine the following program:
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
int value;
for(value = 5 ; value < 15 ; value = value + 1)
{
if (value == 8)
break;
printf("In the break loop, value is now %d\n", value);
}
for(value = 5 ; value < 15 ; value = value + 1)
{
if (value == 8)
continue;
printf("In the continue loop, value is now %d\n", value);
}
return 0;
}
The output of the program will be as follows:
In the break loop, value is now 5
In the break loop, value is now 6
In the break loop, value is now 7
In the continue loop, value is now 5
In the continue loop, value is now 6
In the continue loop, value is now 7
In the continue loop, value is now 9
In the continue loop, value is now 10
In the continue loop, value is now 11
In the continue loop, value is now 12
In the continue loop, value is now 13
In the continue loop, value is now 14 |
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