Break and Continue Statements

The break and continue statements provide additional control over loop execution. Break immediately terminates the entire loop and continues execution after the loop. It's useful for exiting early when a condition is met, such as finding a sought item in a collection or when user input indicates to stop. Continue skips the remaining code in the current iteration and moves to the next iteration of the loop. It's useful for skipping certain elements that don't need processing, such as invalid data or special cases. These statements can be used with both for and while loops. While powerful, they should be used judiciously as excessive use can make code harder to follow. In some cases, restructuring the loop condition or using if statements within the loop can achieve the same result more clearly. However, when used appropriately, break and continue can make loops more efficient and readable by avoiding deeply nested conditionals and unnecessary computations.