In PHP, break and continue are control statements used in loops (such as for, while, and do-while) to alter the normal flow of execution.
Break statement:
The break statement is used to terminate the current loop and continue executing the code outside of the loop. When break is encountered inside a loop, the loop will immediately exit, and the program execution will continue with the statement immediately following the loop.
For example:
for ($i = 0; $i < 10; $i++) {
if ($i == 5) {
break;
}
echo $i . "<br>";
}
In this example, the loop will iterate 5 times, and when $i is equal to 5, the break statement is encountered, causing the loop to exit.
The output of this code will be:
0
1
2
3
4
Continue statement:
The continue statement is used to skip the current iteration of a loop and continue with the next iteration. When continue is encountered inside a loop, the current iteration will be skipped, and the program will continue with the next iteration of the loop.
For example:
for ($i = 0; $i < 10; $i++) {
if ($i == 5) {
continue;
}
echo $i . "<br>";
}
In this example, when $i is equal to 5, the continue statement is encountered, causing the loop to skip the current iteration and continue with the next iteration.
The output of this code will be:
0
1
2
3
4
6
7
8
9
Both break and continue statements are useful when you want to control the flow of execution within a loop based on certain conditions.