Java Loops Control Statement Break

Java break Control Statement

Terminates the loop and starts the execution of the code that immediately follows the loop. If you have nested loops, the break statement will only end the loop in which it is placed.

for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) // Loop 1
{
    for (int j = 0; j < 10; j++) // Loop 2
    {
        if (i == 5 && j == 5)
        {
            break;
            // Will terminate Loop 2, but Loop 1 will keep going
        }
    }
}

But if you do want to break out of the outer loop too, you can use a label to exit:

loop1: // This is a label
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) // Loop 1
{
    for (int j = 0; j < 10; j++) // Loop 2
    {
        if (i == 5 && j == 5)
        {
            break loop1;
            // Will break out of Loop 1, instead of just breaking out of Loop 2
        }
    }
}

🚀 Run Code

break statements can be particulary useful while searching for an element in an array. Using break in the following code improves efficiency as the loop stops as soon as the element we are looking for (searchFor) is found, instead of going on till the end of arrayInts is reached.

int j = 0;
int[] arrayOfInts = {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9};
int searchFor = 5;

for (int i : arrayOfInts)
{
    if (arrayOfInts[j] == searchFor)
        break;
    j++;
}

System.out.println("j = " + j);

🚀 Run Code

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