Break and continue

To alter the normal flow of the looping constructs, i.e. change their behavior, we can use two important keywords: break and continue. They both work for all types of loops.

break statement

This instruction (just like for switch statements) is used to jump out of a loop. break terminates the loop when it is encountered.

Example 1

for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
  if (i == 3) {
    break;
  }
  cout << i << endl;
}

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Example 2

note

break commands are usually used in conjunction with if statements and are the only way to stop an infinite loop (except for closing the program while it's running).

int x = 0;

while (true) {
    cout << x << endl;

    if (x > 100) {
        break; 
    }

    x++;
}

continue statement

The continue statement is used to skip the current iteration of the loop and go to the next iteration. Unlike the break statement, continue doesn't skip all the remaining iterations of the loop but just one.

Example

for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
  if (i > 4) {
    continue;
  }
  // when i > 4 this instruction is no longer executed
  cout << i << "\n";
}

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