Java Break and Continue

Stopping early with break

When Java reaches a break statement, it immediately leaves the loop, ignoring any remaining passes. This is handy when you have found what you were looking for and there is no reason to keep going.

for (int i = 1; i <= 10; i++) {
  if (i == 4) {
    break;
  }
  System.out.println(i);
}

// Output:
// 1
// 2
// 3

The loop was set up to count to 10, but as soon as i reached 4 the break statement ended it. Nothing after 3 was printed because the loop stopped entirely.

Skipping a pass with continue

The continue statement does not end the loop. Instead it skips the rest of the code in the current pass and jumps straight to the next one. Here we print only the odd numbers by skipping the even ones.

for (int i = 1; i <= 6; i++) {
  if (i % 2 == 0) {
    continue;
  }
  System.out.println(i);
}

// Output:
// 1
// 3
// 5

Break and continue at a glance

• break exits the entire loop right away.
• continue skips only the current pass and continues looping.
• Both work in while, do/while, and for loops.
• In nested loops, they affect only the innermost loop that contains them.

String[] names = {"Ana", "Ben", "Cara", "Dev"};
String target = "Cara";

for (int i = 0; i < names.length; i++) {
  if (names[i].equals(target)) {
    System.out.println("Found at position " + i);
    break;
  }
}

// Output: Found at position 2