The Continue Construct

The continue construct allows you to skip the remaining part of the current loop iteration and immediately move to the next iteration. It can be used in all types of loops: for, while, do-while, and foreach.

After the continue command, you can specify a number that indicates how many nested loops should be skipped (default is 1).

Syntax

phpcontinue;
phpcontinue $level;

Example

Skipping even numbers in a loop:

php<?php
  for ($i = 0; $i < 5; $i++) {
    if ($i % 2 == 0) {
      continue;
    }
    echo $i;
  }
?>

Code execution result:

php13

Example

Using continue in a foreach loop:

php<?php
  $arr = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5];
  foreach ($arr as $value) {
    if ($value == 3) {
      continue;
    }
    echo $value;
  }
?>

Code execution result:

php1245

Example

Using continue with a parameter to skip multiple nesting levels:

php<?php
  for ($i = 0; $i < 3; $i++) {
    echo "i: $i\n";
    for ($j = 0; $j < 3; $j++) {
      if ($j == 1) {
        continue 2;
      }
      echo "j: $j\n";
    }
  }
?>

Code execution result:

phpi: 0
j: 0
i: 1
j: 0
i: 2
j: 0

See Also

  • the break construct,
    which completely terminates the loop execution
  • the return construct,
    which terminates function execution