Java Break and Continue

In the last topics, you learned about loops which are used to repeat a certain process some number of times.

What if we can control the way our loop operates?

In Java, we can jump out of a loop or jump to the starting condition of a loop whenever we want. We do this with the help of break and continue statements respectively.

Java break Statement

break is used to break or terminate a loop whenever we want.

Just type break; after the statement after which you want to break the loop.

Java break Syntax

break;

Java break Examples

class Test {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        for (int n = 1; n <= 5; n++) {
            System.out.println("*");
            if (n == 2) {
                break;
            }
        }
    }
}

In the first iteration of the loop, "*" gets printed and the condition n == 2 of if is checked. Since the value of n is 1, the condition becomes false.

In the second iteration of the loop, '*' gets printed again and the condition of if is checked. This time the value of n is 2 and hence the condition of if becomes true. In the body of if, the break statement terminates the loop.

The same program using a while loop is written below.

class Test {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        int n = 1;

        while (n <= 5) {
            System.out.println("*");
            if (n == 2) {
                break;
            }
            n++;
        }
    }
}

Let's look at one more example.

import java.util.Scanner;

class Test {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        int x;
        Scanner s = new Scanner(System.in);

        for (;;) {
            System.out.println("Enter 0 to stop");
            x = s.nextInt();
            if (x == 0) {
                break;
            }
        }
    }
}

This is an infinite loop. To terminate it, we are using the break statement. If the user enters 0, then the condition of if will get satisfied and the break statement will terminate the loop.

Java continue Statement

While the break statement terminates the loop, the continue statement skips the remaining statements in the loop and starts the next iteration.

In short, it ends the execution of the current iteration without executing the rest of the statements in the loop. After that, the flow proceeds to the next iteration as usual.

Let’s look at its syntax and examples to understand the working of continue.

Java continue Syntax

continue;

Java continue Examples

class Test {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        for (int n = 1; n <= 10; n++) {
            if (n == 5) {
                continue;
            }
            System.out.println(n);
        }
    }
}

Notice that 5 is not printed in the output. This is because in the fifth iteration when the value of n became 5, the condition of if became true and the continue statement in the body of if got executed. Thus the next statement System.out.println(n) didn’t get executed and the sixth iteration started.

class Test {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        int n = 1;

        while (n <= 10) {
            if (n == 5) {
                n++;
                continue;
            }
            System.out.println(n);
            n++;
        }
    }
}