continue statement

Causes the remaining portion of the enclosing for, while or do-while loop body to be skipped.

Used when it is otherwise awkward to ignore the remaining portion of the loop using conditional statements.

Syntax

Explanation

The continue statement causes a jump, as if by goto, to the end of the loop body (it may only appear within the loop body of for, while, and do-while loops).

For while loop, it acts as

while (/* ... */) {
   // ... 
   continue; // acts as goto contin;
   // ... 
   contin:;
}

For do-while loop, it acts as:

do {
    // ... 
    continue; // acts as goto contin;
    // ... 
    contin:;
} while (/* ... */);

For for loop, it acts as:

for (/* ... */) {
    // ... 
    continue; // acts as goto contin;
    // ... 
    contin:;
}

Keywords

continue

Example

#include <stdio.h>
 
int main(void) 
{
    for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
        if (i != 5) continue;
        printf("%d ", i);             // this statement is skipped each time i != 5
    }
 
    printf("\n");
 
    for (int j = 0; j < 2; j++) {
        for (int k = 0; k < 5; k++) { // only this loop is affected by continue
            if (k == 3) continue;
            printf("%d%d ", j, k);    // this statement is skipped each time k == 3
        }
    }
}

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References

• C17 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:2018):
• 6.8.6.2 The continue statement (p: 111)
• C11 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:2011):
• 6.8.6.2 The continue statement (p: 153)
• C99 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:1999):
• 6.8.6.2 The continue statement (p: 138)
• C89/C90 standard (ISO/IEC 9899:1990):
• 3.6.6.2 The continue statement

See also