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When to use break and when to use continue

Paul Hudson    @twostraws   

Updated for Xcode 14.2

Sometimes Swift learners find it hard to understand when the break keyword is correct and when the continue keyword is correct, because they both alter the flow of our loops.

When we use continue we’re saying “I’m done with the current run of this loop” – Swift will skip the rest of the loop body, and go to the next item in the loop. But when we say break we’re saying “I’m done with this loop altogether, so get out completely.” That means Swift will skip the remainder of the body loop, but also skip any other loop items that were still to come.

Just like break, you can use continue with labeled statements if you want, but honestly I can’t remember ever seeing it done!

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