Understanding the Continue Statement in C#: Syntax and Usage Explained

Loop Control Statements

Loop control statements change execution from its normal sequence. When execution leaves a scope, all automatic objects that were created in that scope are destroyed.

C# provides the following control statements. Click the following links to check their details.

Sr.No.	Control Statement & Description
1	break statement Terminates the loop or switch statement and transfers execution to the statement immediately following the loop or switch.
2	continue statement Causes the loop to skip the remainder of its body and immediately retest its condition prior to reiterating.

The continue statement in C# works somewhat like the break statement. Instead of forcing termination, however, continue forces the next iteration of the loop to take place, skipping any code in between.

For the for loop, continue statement causes the conditional test and increment portions of the loop to execute. For the while and do...whileloops, continue statement causes the program control passes to the conditional tests.

Syntax

The syntax for a continue statement in C# is as follows −

continue;

Flow Diagram

Flowchart of break statement

How break statement works?

Example

using System;

namespace Loops {
   class Program {
      static void Main(string[] args) {
         /* local variable definition */
         int a = 10;
         
         /* do loop execution */
         do {
            if (a == 15) {
               /* skip the iteration */
               a = a + 1;
               continue;
            }
            Console.WriteLine("value of a: {0}", a);
            a++;
         } 
         while (a < 20);
         Console.ReadLine();
      }
   }
} 

When the above code is compiled and executed, it produces the following result −

value of a: 10
value of a: 11
value of a: 12
value of a: 13
value of a: 14
value of a: 16
value of a: 17
value of a: 18
value of a: 19