Break & Continue

The break Statement

break immediately exits the current loop, skipping any remaining iterations.

for (let i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
  if (i === 5) {
    break;  // loop stops at 5
  }
  console.log(i);
}
// 0 1 2 3 4

Break is commonly used to stop searching once a desired element is found.

const fruits = ["apple", "banana", "cherry", "date"];
let found = false;
for (const fruit of fruits) {
  if (fruit === "cherry") {
    found = true;
    break;
  }
  console.log("Checking " + fruit);
}
console.log("Found: " + found);

The continue Statement

continue skips the current iteration and moves to the next one.

for (let i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
  if (i % 2 === 0) {
    continue;  // skip even numbers
  }
  console.log(i);
}
// 1 3 5 7 9

Use continue to filter out unwanted values without nesting the entire loop body inside an if.

Labeled Statements

Labels let you break or continue an outer loop from inside a nested loop.

outerLoop: for (let i = 0; i < 3; i++) {
  for (let j = 0; j < 3; j++) {
    if (i === 1 && j === 1) {
      break outerLoop;  // breaks both loops
    }
    console.log("i=" + i + " j=" + j);
  }
}
// i=0 j=0  i=0 j=1  i=0 j=2  i=1 j=0