Break & Continue

Imagine you are searching for your house keys. 🔑

You check the table, then the sofa, then your bag, and there they are! Do you keep searching the kitchen and the bedroom? Of course not. You stop searching right away.

Now imagine you are eating a thali. 🍽️ You eat each item one by one, but you skip the karela (bitter gourd) because you don't like it, and then continue eating the rest.

Loops in JavaScript normally run every round until the condition becomes false. But sometimes we want to:

Stop the loop early, like finding the keys → use break
Skip one round and move to the next, like skipping the karela → use continue

What Are Break and Continue?

Keyword	What it does	Real-life example
`break`	Stops the loop completely and exits	Stop searching once the keys are found
`continue`	Skips the current round and goes to the next	Skip the karela, continue eating the rest

Both work in all loops: for, while, do-while, for...of, and for...in.

Part 1: The `break` Statement

break immediately stops the loop. The remaining rounds are skipped, and JavaScript jumps to the code after the loop.

Syntax

for (...) {
  if (condition) {
    break;   // exit the loop right now
  }
}

Simple Example

How It Works

`i`	`i === 5`?	Action
1	❌	Print 1
2	❌	Print 2
3	❌	Print 3
4	❌	Print 4
5	✅	break → exit the loop
6–10	—	Never reached

Even though the loop was set to run until 10, break stopped it at 5.

Real Examples with `break`

Example 1: Searching for a name in a list 🔍

JavaScript didn't waste time checking Sneha and Vikas. This makes your program faster!

Example 2: Stop shopping when the budget ends 💰

Example 3: `break` with `while (true)`

A common pattern is to run a loop "forever" and use break to exit when a goal is reached.

Example 4: `break` in a switch

You already saw break in the Switch Statement lesson. There, it stops JavaScript from falling through to the next case.

Part 2: The `continue` Statement

continue skips the rest of the current round and jumps straight to the next round of the loop. The loop does not stop.

Syntax

for (...) {
  if (condition) {
    continue;   // skip this round
  }
  // this code is skipped when continue runs
}

Simple Example

How It Works

`i`	`i === 3`?	Action
1	❌	Print 1
2	❌	Print 2
3	✅	continue → skip printing, go to the next round
4	❌	Print 4
5	❌	Print 5

Only 3 was skipped. The loop kept going after that.

Real Examples with `continue`

Example 1: Printing only odd numbers

Example 2: Skipping absent students 📋

Example 3: Ignoring invalid data

Example 4: Skipping the karela 🍽️

Break vs Continue: Side by Side

The same loop, with just one word changed:

Point	`break`	`continue`
What happens	Loop ends completely	Only the current round is skipped
Next step	Jumps to the code after the loop	Jumps to the next round
Rounds after it	❌ None run	✅ They still run
Works in `switch`?	✅ Yes	❌ No
Real-life example	Found the keys, stop searching	Skip the karela, keep eating

Break and Continue in Nested Loops

In nested loops, break and continue affect only the loop they are written in, which is the inner loop.

The outer loop kept running all 3 rows. Only the inner loop stopped at col === 2 each time.

Want to stop the outer loop too? JavaScript has labels for that. We will learn them in the Labeled Statements lesson.

⚠️ Watch Out: `continue` in While Loops

In a while loop, be careful where you place continue. If it runs before the update, the update gets skipped and you get an infinite loop!

❌ Wrong:

let i = 0;

while (i < 5) {
  if (i === 2) {
    continue;   // skips i++ below → i stays 2 forever!
  }
  console.log(i);
  i++;
}

✅ Correct: update before continue

In a for loop, this problem doesn't happen, because the update (i++) runs automatically even after continue.

⚠️ They Don't Work in `forEach()`

break and continue cannot be used inside forEach().

Fix: Use a for...of loop instead:

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Mistake	Problem	Fix
`continue` before the update in `while`	Infinite loop	Update the variable before `continue`
Using `break` or `continue` in `forEach()`	❌ SyntaxError	Use `for...of`
Expecting `break` to exit all nested loops	Only the inner loop stops	Use labels or a flag variable
Using `continue` in `switch`	❌ Not allowed outside a loop	Use `break` in `switch`
Using too many `break`/`continue`	Code becomes hard to follow	Keep conditions simple and clear

Key Takeaways

break stops the loop completely and jumps to the code after it.
continue skips only the current round and moves to the next one.
Use break to stop early (like when searching) and continue to skip unwanted items (like invalid data).
In nested loops, both affect only the loop they are written in.
Be careful with continue in while loops (it can cause infinite loops), and remember that neither works in forEach().

Do-While Loop

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forEach Loop