In Java, there is 2 types of break
statement: unlabeled break
statement and labeled break
statement.
The unlabeled break
statement is used to terminate and exit the for
loop, enhanced for
loop, while
loop, do-while
loop and switch
statement. It will skip the rest of the statements in the loop body and continue after the enclosing statement.
The labeled break
statement is used to terminate the labeled statement.
In this tutorial, we’ll show you some examples of how to use the unlabeled and labeled break
statement in Java.
What You’ll Need
- Oracle JDK 1.7 or above
break in for Loop
This is the code snippet of using unlabeled break
statement in for
loop.
for (int count = 1; count <= 10; count++) {
if (count == 6) {
break;
}
System.out.println(count);
}
Output:
1
2
3
4
5
break in Enhanced for Loop
This is the code snippet of using unlabeled break
statement in enhanced for
loop.
int[] counts = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10};
for (int count: counts) {
if (count == 6) {
break;
}
System.out.println(count);
}
Output:
1
2
3
4
5
break in while Loop
This is the code snippet of using unlabeled break
statement in while
loop.
int count1 = 1;
while (count1 <= 10) {
if (count1 == 6) {
break;
}
System.out.println(count1);
count1++;
}
Output:
1
2
3
4
5
break in do-while Loop
This is the code snippet of using unlabeled break
statement in do-while
loop.
int count2 = 1;
do {
if (count2 == 6) {
break;
}
System.out.println(count2);
count2++;
} while (count2 <= 10);
Output:
1
2
3
4
5
break in switch Statement
This is the code snippet of using unlabeled break
statement in switch
statement.
String day = "Thursday";
switch (day) {
case "Monday":
case "Tuesday":
case "Wednesday":
case "Thursday":
case "Friday":
System.out.printf("%s is weekday%n", day);
break;
case "Saturday":
case "Sunday":
System.out.printf("%s is weekend%n", day);
break;
default:
System.out.printf("%s is an invalid day%n", day);
}
Output:
Thursday is weekday
Note: Beginning with Java 7, we can pass String
type argument to switch
statement to compare the value.
Labeled break Statement
This is the code snippet of using labeled break
statement to terminate and exit the outer for
loop.
LabeledBreakStatementExample.java
public class LabeledBreakStatementExample {
public static void main(String[] args) {
outerLoop:
for (int i = 1; i <= 5; i++) {
for (int j = 1; j <= 5; j++) {
if (i == 3 && j == 3) {
break outerLoop;
}
System.out.printf("i = %d, j = %d%n", i, 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
Summary
In this tutorial, we have shown you several examples of using unlabeled and labeled break
statement in Java.
You can get the example codes of this tutorial on GitHub.