Codectionary / Developer documentation / JavaScript

break and continue

break immediately exits the nearest enclosing loop (or switch statement), skipping any remaining iterations. continue skips the rest of the current iteration and moves on to the next one, without exiting the loop entirely. Labeled statements let break/continue target an outer loop from within a nested one.

Syntax

break;
continue;

Examples

break

Exiting a loop early once a condition is met.

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

continue

Skipping specific iterations without stopping the whole loop.

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

Labeled break in Nested Loops

Breaking out of an outer loop from within a nested one.

outer: for (let i = 0; i < 3; i++) {
  for (let j = 0; j < 3; j++) {
    if (j === 1) {
      break outer; // exits the OUTER loop, not just the inner one
    }
    console.log(i, j);
  }
}
// 0 0

Best practices

  • Use break to exit a loop as soon as further iteration is pointless, like finding a match
  • Use continue to skip irrelevant iterations while keeping the loop running
  • Reach for labeled break/continue sparingly - they can make nested loop logic harder to follow
  • Consider whether array methods like find() or some() might express the same intent more clearly than a manual loop with break

Runtime & versions

Browsers and JavaScript runtimes. Feature availability depends on the language and runtime version used by your project; consult the official reference below.

ECMAScript specification

Specifications & further reading