break and continue statement

By Team EasyExamNotes

In C programming, the break and continue statements are used to control the flow of execution within loops.
They are primarily used in for, while, and do-while loops.

break statement:

The break statement is used to exit the current loop immediately, regardless of the loop condition.
When the break statement is encountered, the program jumps to the first statement after the loop body.
It is commonly used to terminate a loop prematurely based on a certain condition.

Example:

C

#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
    int i = 1;
    while (i <= 10) {
        if (i == 6) {
            break;  // Exit the loop when i equals 6
        }
        printf("%d ", i);
        i++;
    }
    printf("\n");
    return 0;
}

Output:

Output

1 2 3 4 5

In the example above, the loop prints the values of i from 1 to 5.
When i becomes 6, the break statement is encountered, causing the loop to terminate immediately.

continue statement:

The continue statement is used to skip the remaining code within the loop for the current iteration and jump to the next iteration.
When the continue statement is encountered, the program goes directly to the loop’s condition check or increment/decrement statement.
It is commonly used to skip certain iterations based on a particular condition.

Example:

C

#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
    for (int i = 1; i <= 5; i++) {
        if (i == 3) {
            continue;  // Skip the rest of the loop body for i equals 3
        }
        printf("%d ", i);
    }
    printf("\n");
    return 0;
}

Output:

Output

1 2 4 5

In the example above, the loop prints the values of i from 1 to 5 but skips the iteration where i is 3 due to the continue statement.
As a result, the number 3 is not printed.

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