The break statement "jumps out" of a loop.

The continue statement "jumps over" one iteration in the loop.

The Break Statement

You have already seen the break statement used in an earlier chapter of this tutorial. It was used to "jump out" of a switch() statement.

The break statement can also be used to jump out of a loop:

Example

for (let i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
  if (i === 3) { break; }
  text += "The number is " + i + "<br>";
}

In the example above, the break statement ends the loop ("breaks" the loop) when the loop counter (i) is 3.

The Continue Statement

The continue statement breaks one iteration (in the loop), if a specified condition occurs, and continues with the next iteration in the loop.

This example skips the value of 3:

Example

for (let i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
  if (i === 3) { continue; }
  text += "The number is " + i + "<br>";
}

JavaScript Labels

To label JavaScript statements you precede the statements with a label name and a colon:

label:
statements

The break and the continue statements are the only JavaScript statements that can "jump out of" a code block.

Syntax:

break labelname;

continue labelname;

The continue statement (with or without a label reference) can only be used to skip one loop iteration.

The break statement, without a label reference, can only be used to jump out of a loop or a switch.

With a label reference, the break statement can be used to jump out of any code block:

Example

const cars = ["BMW", "Volvo", "Saab", "Ford"];
list: {
  text += cars[0] + "<br>";
  text += cars[1] + "<br>";
  break list;
  text += cars[2] + "<br>";
  text += cars[3] + "<br>";
}

A code block is a block of code between { and }.