Question

In a C# (feel free to answer for other languages) loop, what’s the difference between break and continue as a means to leave the structure of the loop, and go to the next iteration?

Example:

foreach (DataRow row in myTable.Rows) {     if (someConditionEvalsToTrue)     {         break; //what's the difference between this and continue ?         //continue;     } } 

Answer 1

break will exit the loop completely, continue will just skip the current iteration.

For example:

for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {     if (i == 0) {         break;     }      DoSomeThingWith(i); } 

The break will cause the loop to exit on the first iteration —DoSomeThingWith will never be executed.

While:

for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {     if (i == 0) {         continue;     }      DoSomeThingWith(i); } 

Here continue skips to the next iteration of the for-loop, meaning DoSomeThingWith will not execute for i == 0.
But the loop will continue and DoSomeThingWith will be executed for i == 1 to i == 9.