59. 'break' jump statement

Jump statements transfer control to another part of your program. 'break' jump statement simply breaks the swith case/loops to comeout of the loop and continue with the program statements after the switch case/loop in which it was mentioned.

Program to demonstrate the usage of 'break' statement in 'switch' selection statements

class SwitchBreak {    public static void main(String args[])    {       int a=1;         switch(a)       {          case 0:              System.out.println("Case 0");              break;          case 1:              System.out.println("Case 1");              break;          default:              System.out.println("Default Case");        }     }  } Output of this program: Case 1 Observe that after printing the 'Case 1' text, the program tries to move to the next cases. But as we've mentioned break; statement, the switch case will be terminated and instead of going to the next case i.e. default

Using break statement to exit a 'for' loop

class ForBreak {    public static void main(String args[])    {       int a=3;       for(int i=1;i<5;i++)       {               if(i==a)           break;        System.out.println("The value of i is "+i);       }    } } Output of this program: The value of i is 1 The value of i is 2 i.e. when the value of i is equal to the value of a i.e. 3, the program will exit the 'for' loop because of the break statement written. But we've to understand the break was not designed to provide a normal means by which a loop is terminated. Instead the break statement should be used to cancel a loop only when some sort of special situations occurs. If you go through this program, we have used break statement to exit the 'for' loop when the special situation if(i==a) is occurred.

Using a break statement to exit a 'while' loop

class WhileLoopBreak {    public static void main(String args[])    {       int i=0;       while(i<100)       {   if(i==10)          break;        System.out.print(i+" ");        i++;       }     }  } Output of this program: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6  7 8 9  Since the while loop got braked by the break; statement when the value of i reached 10, so the program printed values of i from 0 to 9 ,though it has the scope to print the values till 99.

Using a break statement to exit a do-while loop

class DoWhileLoopBreak {    public static void main(String args[])    {       int i=0;       do{             if(i==10)                 break;             System.out.print(i+" ");              i++;         }while(i<100);     }  } Output of this program: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6  7 8 9  Since the Do-while loop got braked by the break; statement when the value of i reached 10, so the program printed values of i from 0 to 9 ,though it has the scope to print the values till 99.

Using break to exit the nested loops

class BreakNestedLoops {    public static void main(String args[])    {    first: for(int i=0;i<10;i++)        //Labelled this loop as 'first'           {    second: for(int j=0;j<10;j++)       //Labelled this loop as 'second'            {    Third: for(int k=0;k<10;k++)        //Labelled  this loop as 'third'           {              if((i+j+k)==1)                 break first;     //This will break the entire nested loop if the condition specified in the 'if' statement is met, since we've specified to break the loop labelled with 'first'              System.out.println("The value of i+j+k is "+(i+j+k));       }     }    }    }  } Output of this program: The value of i+j+k is 0

Break the inner loop

class BreakInnerLoop {    public static void main(String args[])    {    first: for(int i=0;i<5;i++)        //Labelled this loop as 'first'           {    second: for(int j=0;j<5;j++)       //Labelled this loop as 'second'            {              if(j>3)                break second;   //This will break the inner loop if the condition specified in the 'if' statement is met, since we've specified to break the loop labelled with 'second'             System.out.print(j+" ");    } System.out.println();  }    }  } Output of this program: 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 If you observe clearly when the program execution enter the inner loop, it breaks when the value of j is 4, hence it wont print the value 4 in the output. Each time it the value of j becomes 4, the program execution breaks and the control goes to the outer loop labelled 'first' in this example and start its execution by incrementing the 'i' value

                                                                         

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How to use the 'continue' jump statements will be explained in the next post.