continue statement

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

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

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

5
(0,0) (0,1) (0,2) (0,4) (1,0) (1,1) (1,2) (1,4)

See also