C++ Break and Continue

The break statement

The break statement immediately ends the loop it is inside. As soon as break runs, the loop stops completely and your program jumps to the first line after the loop, ignoring any remaining passes.

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

int main() {
  for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
    if (i == 4) {
      break;
    }
    cout << i << "\n";
  }
  return 0;
}

This loop was set up to run until i reaches 10, but break ends it the moment i equals 4. So it prints 0, 1, 2, and 3, then quits without printing anything else.

The continue statement

The continue statement skips the rest of the current pass and jumps straight to the next one. The loop itself keeps going; only the leftover code in that single pass is skipped.

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

int main() {
  for (int i = 0; i < 6; i++) {
    if (i == 3) {
      continue;
    }
    cout << i << "\n";
  }
  return 0;
}

Here every number from 0 to 5 is printed except 3. When i equals 3, continue skips the cout line for that pass only, and the loop moves on to i equals 4.

• break exits the whole loop right away.
• continue skips to the next pass of the same loop.
• Both usually appear inside an if so they trigger only under a specific condition.