Understanding break and continue Statements in Python

break Statement

The break statement is used to exit a loop prematurely. When a break statement is encountered, the loop stops executing, and the program control jumps to the first statement following the loop.

for number in range(10):
    if number == 5:
        break  # Exit the loop when number is 5
    print(number)

# Output: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4

In this example, the loop will print numbers from 0 to 4. When the loop reaches 5, the break statement is executed, and the loop terminates.

continue Statement

The continue statement is used to skip the current iteration of a loop and proceed to the next iteration. When a continue statement is encountered, the rest of the code inside the loop for the current iteration is skipped.

for number in range(10):
    if number % 2 == 0:
        continue  # Skip the even numbers
    print(number)

# Output: 1, 3, 5, 7, 9

In this example, the loop iterates through numbers from 0 to 9 but skips printing the even numbers. When an even number is encountered, the continue statement is executed, and the loop moves to the next iteration.

Summary