continue statement

C++

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Technical Specifications

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label : statement

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expression ;

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range for(C++11)

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Causes the remaining portion of the enclosing for, range-for, while or do-while loop body to be skipped.

Used when it is otherwise awkward to ignore the remaining portion of the loop using conditional statements.

Syntax

attr(optional) continue ;

Explanation

The continue statement causes a jump, as if by goto to the end of the loop body (it may only appear within the loop body of for, range-for, while, and do-while loops).

More precisely,

For while loop, it acts as

while (/* ... */) {
   // ... 
   continue; // acts as goto contin;
   // ...
   contin:;
}

For do-while loop, it acts as:

do {
    // ...
    continue; // acts as goto contin;
    // ...
    contin:;
} while (/* ... */);

For for and range-for loop, it acts as:

for (/* ... */) {
    // ...
    continue; // acts as goto contin;
    // ...
    contin:;
}

Keywords

continue

Example

Run this code

#include <iostream>

int main() 
{
    for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
        if (i != 5) continue;
        std::cout << i << " ";       //this statement is skipped each time i!=5
    }

    std::cout << '\n';

    for (int j = 0; j < 2; j++) {
        for (int k = 0; k < 5; k++) {   //only this loop is affected by continue
            if (k == 3) continue;
            std::cout << j << k << " "; //this statement is skipped each time k==3
        }
    }
}

Output:

5
00 01 02 04 10 11 12 14