Continue Statement in Java

The continue statement can be used with loop control statement such as for loop, while loop and do-white loop. If we want to skip some statements in a loop, continue statement can be used. The continue statement can be written anywhere inside a loop body. When continue statement is encountered inside a loop, control jumps to the end of the loop and test expression is evaluated. In case of for loop, update statement is executed and then test expression is evaluated. 

Syntax of continue statement

continue;

Example of java continue statement

class ContinueStatement
{
 public static void main(String[] args) {
  int i;
  for (i =1; i<=10 ; i++) {
   if(i==5 || i==6){
    continue;
   }
   System.out.println(i);
  }
 }
}

Output:

1
2
3
4
7
8
9
10

When i = 5 or i = 6, continue statement is executed and control jump to the update statement of for loop. This is the reason why 5 and 6 is printed.

Continue Statement with Inner Loop

If continue statement is encountered in inner loop, then it continues only inner loop. And test expression is evaluated of inner loop. In case of for loop, update statement of inner loop is evaluated and then test expression is evaluated. 

Example:

class ContinueStatement
{
 public static void main(String[] args) {
  int i, j;
  for (i = 1; i<=5 ; i++) {
   for (j = 1; j<=5; j++) {
    if(i>3 && j>3){
      continue;
       }
       System.out.println("i = "+i+"  "+"j = "+j);
   }   
  }
 }
}

Output:

i = 1  j = 1
i = 1  j = 2
i = 1  j = 3
i = 1  j = 4
i = 1  j = 5
i = 2  j = 1
i = 2  j = 2
i = 2  j = 3
i = 2  j = 4
i = 2  j = 5
i = 3  j = 1
i = 3  j = 2
i = 3  j = 3
i = 3  j = 4
i = 3  j = 5
i = 4  j = 1
i = 4  j = 2
i = 4  j = 3
i = 5  j = 1
i = 5  j = 2
i = 5  j = 3

When (i>3 && j>3) condition holds true, then value of i and j is not displayed. Otherwise, value of i and j is displayed.