JavaScript Break and Continue

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The break statement "jumps out" of a loop.

The continue statement "jumps over" one iteration in the loop.

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The Break Statement

You have already seen the break statement used in an earlier chapter of this tutorial. It was used to "jump out" of a switch() statement.

The break statement can also be used to jump out of a loop.  

The break statement breaks the loop and continues executing the code after the loop (if any):

Example

for (i=0;i<10;i++)
  {
  if (i==3)
    {
    break;
    }
  x=x + "The number is " + i + "<br>";
  }

Since the if statement has only one single line of code, the braces can be omitted:

for (i=0;i<10;i++)
  {
  if (i==3) break;
  x=x + "The number is " + i + "<br>";
  }

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The Continue Statement

The continue statement breaks one iteration (in the loop), if a specified condition occurs, and continues with the next iteration in the loop.

This example skips the value of 3:

Example

for (i=0;i<=10;i++)
 {
 if (i==3) continue;
  x=x + "The number is " + i + "<br>";
  }

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JavaScript Labels

As you have already seen, in the chapter about the switch statement, JavaScript statements can be labeled.

To label JavaScript statements you precede the statements with a colon:

label:
statements

The break and the continue statements are the only JavaScript statements that can "jump out of" a code block.

Syntax:

break labelname;

continue labelname;

The continue statement (with or without a label reference) can only be used inside a loop.

The break statement, without a label reference, can only be used inside a loop or a switch.

With a label reference, it can be used to "jump out of" any JavaScript code block:

Example

cars=["BMW","Volvo","Saab","Ford"];
list:
{
document.write(cars[0] + "<br>");
document.write(cars[1] + "<br>");
document.write(cars[2] + "<br>");
break list;
document.write(cars[3] + "<br>");
document.write(cars[4] + "<br>");
document.write(cars[5] + "<br>");
}