The break is a keyword in C which is used to bring the program control out of the loop.
The break statement is used inside loops or switch statement.
The break statement breaks the loop one by one, i.e., in the case of nested loops, it breaks the inner loop first and then proceeds to outer loops.
The break statement in C can be used in the following two scenarios:
Syntax:
//loop or switch case
break;
#include<stdio.h>
#include<stdlib.h>
int main ()
{
int i;
for(i = 0; i<10; i++)
{
printf("%d ",i);
if(i == 5)
break;
}
printf("came outside of loop i = %d",i);
}
// C break statement with the nested loop
// In such case, it breaks only the inner loop, but not outer loop.
#include<stdio.h>
int main(){
int i=1,j=1; //initializing a local variable
for(i=1;i<=3;i++){
for(j=1;j<=3;j++){
printf("%d %d\n",i,j);
if(i==2 && j==2){
break;//will break loop of j only
}
}//end of for loop
}
return 0;
}
As you can see the output on the console, 2 3 is not printed because there is a break statement after printing i==2 and j==2. But 3 1, 3 2 and 3 3 are printed because the break statement is used to break the inner loop only.
Consider the following example to use break statement inside while loop.
#include<stdio.h>
int main ()
{
int i = 0;
while(1)
{
printf("%d ",i);
i++;
if(i == 10)
break;
}
printf("came out of while loop");
}
Consider the following example to use the break statement with a do-while loop.
#include<stdio.h>
int main ()
{
int n=2,i,choice;
do
{
i=1;
while(i<=10)
{
printf("%d X %d = %d\n",n,i,n*i);
i++;
}
printf("do you want to continue with the table of %d , enter any non-zero value to continue.",n+1);
scanf("%d",&choice);
if(choice == 0)
{
break;
}
n++;
}while(1);
}