Loop control statements give you the power to influence how loops behave as they run. In Java, break and continue are two key statements that help you control the flow of your loops.

• break lets you stop a loop early, jumping out as soon as a certain condition is met;
• continue skips the rest of the current loop cycle and moves straight to the next one.

Using break and continue helps you write cleaner, more efficient code by avoiding unnecessary steps and focusing on what matters most in your logic.

break

The break statement is used inside loops to immediately exit the loop, regardless of the loop's condition. When the program encounters a break statement, it stops the current loop and continues executing the code that follows the loop.

Key points:

• break only exits the innermost loop or switch statement where it appears;
• Code after the break statement within the same block will not execute;
• It can be used in for, while, and do-while loops, as well as in switch statements;
• Overusing break can make code harder to read, so use it thoughtfully.

Example:

Imagine you are searching for the number 5 in a sequence from 1 to 10. Instead of checking every number, you want the program to stop immediately once the number is found.

1. The for loop iterates from 1 to 10;
2. Inside the loop, we check if the current number i equals 5;
3. When i == 5, the break statement immediately exits the loop, skipping any remaining iterations;
4. If i is not 5, the program prints "Checked: i";
5. After the loop ends (either normally or due to break), the program prints "Loop ended.".

continue

The continue statement is used inside loops to skip the current iteration and move directly to the next one. When you use continue, the loop does not execute any remaining code in the current iteration; instead, it jumps straight to the loop's condition check for the next cycle.

When to use continue:

• When you need to skip processing for specific values;
• When you want to avoid executing part of the loop body under some conditions;
• When filtering out unwanted cases during iteration.

Example:

You want to print all numbers from 1 to 5 except 3:

1. The for loop iterates from 1 to 5;
2. Inside the loop, we check if the current number i equals 3;
3. When i == 3, the continue statement is executed, which immediately skips the rest of the loop body and moves to the next iteration;
4. For all other numbers, the program prints "Number: i";
5. As a result, the number 3 is skipped.

Both statements help control the flow of loops, making code more efficient and readable.