break, continue and pass in Python

Using loops in Python automates and repeats the tasks in an efficient manner. But sometimes, there may arise a condition where you want to exit the loop completely, skip an iteration or ignore that condition. These can be done by loop control statements. Loop control statements change execution from its normal sequence. When execution leaves a scope, all automatic objects that were created in that scope are destroyed.

Break statement

The break statement is used to terminate the loop or statement in which it is present. After that, the control will pass to the statements that are present after the break statement, if available. If the break statement is present in the nested loop, then it terminates only those loops which contains break statement.

Syntax:

break

python break statement

Example:
Consider a situation where you want to iterate over a string and want to print all the characters until a letter ‘e’ or ‘s’ is encountered. It is specified that you have to do this using loop and only one loop is allowed to use.
Here comes the usage of break statement. What we can do is iterate over a string using either a while loop or for loop and every time we have to compare the value of iterator with ‘e’ or ‘s’. If it is ‘e’ or ‘s’ we will use the break statement to exit the loop.

Below is the implementation.

# Python program to demonstrate
# break statement
 
# Python program to 
# demonstrate break statement 
   
s = 'geeksforgeeks'
# Using for loop 
for letter in s: 
   
    print(letter) 
    # break the loop as soon it sees 'e' 
    # or 's' 
    if letter == 'e' or letter == 's': 
        break
   
print("Out of for loop") 
print() 
   
i = 0
   
# Using while loop 
while True: 
    print(s[i]) 
   
    # break the loop as soon it sees 'e' 
    # or 's' 
    if s[i] == 'e' or s[i] == 's': 
        break
    i += 1
   
print("Out of while loop")

Output:

g
e
Out of for loop

g
e
Out of while loop

Continue statement

Continue is also a loop control statement just like the break statement. continue statement is opposite to that of break statement, instead of terminating the loop, it forces to execute the next iteration of the loop.
As the name suggests the continue statement forces the loop to continue or execute the next iteration. When the continue statement is executed in the loop, the code inside the loop following the continue statement will be skipped and the next iteration of the loop will begin.

Syntax:

continue

python continue statement

Example:
Consider the situation when you need to write a program which prints the number from 1 to 10 and but not 6. It is specified that you have to do this using loop and only one loop is allowed to use.
Here comes the usage of continue statement. What we can do here is we can run a loop from 1 to 10 and every time we have to compare the value of iterator with 6. If it is equal to 6 we will use the continue statement to continue to next iteration without printing anything otherwise we will print the value.

Below is the implementation of the above idea:

# Python program to 
# demonstrate continue 
# statement 
   
# loop from 1 to 10 
for i in range(1, 11): 
   
    # If i is equals to 6,   
    # continue to next iteration   
    # without printing  
    if i == 6: 
        continue
    else: 
        # otherwise print the value 
        # of i 
        print(i, end = " ")

Output:

1 2 3 4 5 7 8 9 10

Pass statement

As the name suggests pass statement simply does nothing. The pass statement in Python is used when a statement is required syntactically but you do not want any command or code to execute. It is like null operation, as nothing will happen is it is executed. Pass statement can also be used for writing empty loops. Pass is also used for empty control statement, function and classes.

Syntax:

pass

Example:

# Python program to demonstrate
# pass statement
 
 
s = "geeks"
 
# Empty loop
for i in s:
    # No error will be raised
    pass
 
# Empty function
def fun():
    pass
 
# No error will be raised
fun()
 
# Pass statement
for i in s:
    if i == 'k':
        print('Pass executed')
        pass
    print(i)

Output:

g
e
e
Pass executed
k
s

In the above example, when the value of i becomes equal to ‘k’, the pass statement did nothing and hence the letter ‘k’ is also printed.

Last Updated on March 17, 2022 by admin

break, continue and pass in Python