Difference between Break and Continue statement

Both the break and continue statements are used to change the fliw of executionin Java loops. However they differ in the way they work.

What is a break statement?

A break statement is used to terminate a loop. So the moment a break statement is encountered, control is transferred outside the loop even if condition part of the loop is true.

Consider the following code snippet:

for(int i = 0; i < 50;i++){
if(i == 10)
break;
System.out.println("i="+i);
}
System.out.println("Outside loop");

This will print the following output:

i=0
i=1
i=2
i=3
i=4
i=5
i=6
i=7
i=8
i=9
Outside loop

So the loop executes till i reaches 10. Once the value of i is 10, the loop is exited.

In addition a break statement is also used in a switch block to skip further case statements the moment a match is encountered.

What is a continue statement?

Continue statement is used when you want to stop processing the remaining code in the body of a loop for a particular iteration but continue the loop for the next iteration.

Consider the following code snippet:

for(int i = 0; i < 10;i++){
if(i % 2 == 0)
continue;
System.out.println("i="+i);

}
System.out.println("Outside loop");

This code snippet prints only the odd numbers from 1 to 10.  So it will print the following output:

i=1
i=3
i=5
i=7
i=9
Outside loop

So if the number is even (determined by the if check for i % 2 == 0), the continue statement is executed which skips Sysout statement and continues at the top of the loop.