Break statements

A break statement is used to exit a loop or switch statement before it has naturally completed its execution.

In other words, even if the condition for the loop is still true, a break statement will immediately exit the loop and continue executing the code that follows after the loop.

Basic syntax

To break out of a loop, just add this line anywhere in the loop:

break;

Example: breaking out of a while loop

Here’s an example of a while loop that counts from 1 to 10, but uses a break statement to exit the loop when the count reaches 5:

int count = 1;
while (count <= 10) {
    Console.WriteLine(count);
    if (count == 5) {
        break; // Exit the loop when count is 5
    }
    count++; // Increment count by 1
}

Output:

Note that the 5 is printed before the loop exits, because the break statement is executed after the Console.WriteLine(count); line.

Example: breaking out of a for loop

We can do exactly the same thing with a for loop. Here’s an example that counts from 1 to 10, but breaks out of the loop when the count reaches 5:

for (int count = 1; count <= 10; count++) {
    Console.WriteLine(count);
    if (count == 5) {
        break; // Exit the loop when count is 5
    }
}

Break statements outside conditions

If we are using break to break out of a loop, it’s almost always inside some kind of condition (like an if statement) that checks for a specific situation.

For example, in the example above, we only want to break out of the loop when count is equal to 5.

You shouldn’t put a break statement directly inside a loop without any condition, because that would make the loop exit immediately on the first iteration, which is usually not what you want (as the loop would be entirely pointless).

Here’s an example of a loop with a break statement outside an if condition:

int count = 1;
while (count <= 10) {
    Console.WriteLine(count);
    break; // This will exit the loop immediately
    count++; // This line will never be reached
}

Output: