break / continue

Exit from or skip to the next iteration of a loop.

Source: src/execution/builtins.f90:2406-2508

Synopsis

break [n]
continue [n]

Description

break exits one or more enclosing for, while, or until loops. continue skips the rest of the current iteration and jumps to the next.

Both accept an optional argument n specifying how many levels of nesting to break out of or continue from. The default is 1 (innermost loop only).

break

Exit from a loop:

for i in 1 2 3 4 5; do
    if [[ $i -eq 3 ]]; then
        break
    fi
    echo "$i"
done
# Output: 1 2

Multi-level break

for i in a b c; do
    for j in 1 2 3; do
        if [[ $j -eq 2 ]]; then
            break 2    # Exit both loops
        fi
        echo "$i$j"
    done
done
# Output: a1

continue

Skip to the next iteration:

for i in 1 2 3 4 5; do
    if [[ $i -eq 3 ]]; then
        continue
    fi
    echo "$i"
done
# Output: 1 2 4 5

Multi-level continue

for i in a b c; do
    for j in 1 2 3; do
        if [[ $j -eq 2 ]]; then
            continue 2    # Skip to next iteration of outer loop
        fi
        echo "$i$j"
    done
done
# Output: a1 b1 c1

Behavior Outside Loops

When called outside a loop, both break and continue silently succeed with exit status 0 (POSIX-compatible behavior).

Exit Status

See Also

• Loops - for, while, until loops
• return - Return from a function