Break and continue in c programming

Break statement in c

In some situations, we need to jump out of a loop without checking the conditional test. The keyword break allows doing this in c programming.

Whenever a break statement is encountered the control jumps out of the loop and executes the next statement after the loop.

The break statement is associated with if statement.

Break statement is also used in switch case to break the cases.

Look at the control flow of break statement: Here I have showed control flow in a while loop.

Syntax of break statement

break;

Example

//Example for break program in c
#include<stdio.h>
int main()
{
  int i;
  printf(" We stop at 5 \n");
  for(i=0;i<=10;i++)
  {
    printf("%d \n",i);
    if(i==5)
      break;
  }
  printf("After the loop \n");
  return 0;
}  

Output

	We stop at 5 
	0 
	1 
	2 
	3 
	4 
	5 
	After the loop 

Code explanation

In the above program we declare one loop variable.

The process is to print the numbers from 0 to 5. At the beginning i value is zero and is less than 10 therefore control jumps inside the loop and prints the value 0.

Then as i value is not 5 it goes to the beginning of the loop and prints the next value.

This process continues until i value becomes 5.

Once i value becomes 5 control jumps out of the loop and executes remaining statements in program.

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continue statement in c

In some situations where we have to go to the beginning of the loop without executing statements after a specific statement in that loop. Continue statement will do this.

Whenever a continue statement is encountered the control jumps to the beginning of a loop by skipping that iteration.

Continue is associated with if statement.

We cannot use continue in switch case.

Look at the control flow of continue statement: Here I have showed control flow in a while loop.

Syntax of continue statement

continue;

Let’s look at the example program

Example

//Example for continue program in c
#include<stdio.h>
int main()
{
  int i=8;
  while(i>=0)
  {
   if(i==5)
    {
      i--;
      continue;
    }
   printf("%d \n",i);
   i--;
  }
return 0;
}  

Output

	8 
	7 
	6 
	4 
	3 
	2 
	1 
	0 

Code explanation

In the above program we declare one loop variable.

The solution is to print the values from 8 to 0 in descending order.

First i value will be 8 which is true and therefore control enters inside the loop.

As it is not equal to 5 it’s value is printed. Next The process continues until i value becomes 5.

Once i value becomes 5 the counter value is decremented and the process continues.

So in the process the value 5 is skipped.

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Difference between break and continue statement in c with example

Break statement terminates the loop. Continue statement skips one iteration.

If the break statement is executed then the loop is terminated but in the case of continue, the loop may execute by skipping that iteration.

The break statement is used not only with loops but also with switch cases but continue statement can only be used with loops.

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