Continue Statement in C

In this tutorial, we will learn about the continue statement in C. We will cover the basics of using the continue statement to skip the current iteration of a loop and proceed with the next iteration.

What is a Continue Statement

A continue statement is used to skip the current iteration of a loop and proceed with the next iteration. When a continue statement is encountered, the remaining code inside the loop for the current iteration is skipped, and the loop continues with the next iteration.

Syntax

The syntax for the continue statement in C is:

continue;

The continue statement can be used in for, while, and do-while loops to skip the current iteration and proceed with the next iteration.


Example 1: Skipping Even Numbers in a For Loop

  1. Declare an integer variable i.
  2. Use a for loop to iterate from 1 to 10.
  3. Inside the loop, use an if statement to check if i is even.
  4. If the condition is true, use a continue statement to skip the current iteration.

C Program

#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
    for (int i = 1; i <= 10; i++) {
        if (i % 2 == 0) {
            continue;
        }
        printf("%d ", i);
    }
    return 0;
}

Output

1 3 5 7 9

Example 2: Skipping Odd Numbers in a While Loop

  1. Declare an integer variable i and initialize it to 1.
  2. Use a while loop to iterate while i is less than or equal to 10.
  3. Inside the loop, use an if statement to check if i is odd.
  4. If the condition is true, use a continue statement to skip the current iteration.

C Program

#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
    int i = 1;
    while (i <= 10) {
        if (i % 2 != 0) {
            continue;
        }
        printf("%d ", i);
        i++;
    }
    return 0;
}

Output

2 4 6 8 10