Java continue and return keyword

Sometime you may require that for a particular repetition of a loop, you don't want to execute few or all instructions of loop body. To solve such requirements java provides continue keyword which allows programmers to skip the current iteration of a loop and move to the next iteration, which means if you want to skip the execution of code inside a loop for a particular iteration, you can use continue statement. Only the code written after the continue statement will be skipped, code before the continue statement will execute as usual for that iteration.

continue statement can be used only inside for, while and do while loops of java. In case of break statement the control flow exits from the loop, but in case of continue statement, the control flow will not be exited, only the current iteration of loop will be skipped. It is mostly used along with conditional statements(if, else). The syntax of continue statement is:

 continue;

Control flow diagram of continue statement

Once continue statement is executed inside for loop, the control flow moves back to for loop to evaluate increment/decrement expression and then condition expression. If continue statement is executed inside while and do while loop, the control flow jumps to condition expression for evaluation.

Java Program of continue Statement

 class ContinueStatement
   {
     public static void main(String [] args)
       {          
          for(int i=1; i<=5; i++)
             {
                if(i==4)
                  {
                     continue;
                  }
                System.out.println("i = "+i);
             }  
           System.out.println("line after for loop");             
       }
   }

Output:

As you can see in above program, for i==4 the continue statement is executed which skips the current iteration and move to the next iteration, that is why value i = 4 is not printed.

If continue statement is used inside any inner loop, it skips current iteration of inner loop only, the outer loop will be executed as usual.

 class InnerLoppContinueStatement
   {
     public static void main(String [] args)
       {          
          for(int i=1; i<=3; i++)
            {
               System.out.println("Outer loop i = "+i);
               for(int j=1; j<=2; j++)
                 {
                    if(i==2)
                      {
                        continue;
                      }
                    System.out.println("  j = "+j);
                 } 
             }
          System.out.println("line after outer for loop");             
       }
   }

Output:

Labeled continue Statement

A Labeled continue statement allows programmer to skip the current iteration of that label.

Java Program of labeled continue statement

 class LabeledContinueStatement
   {
      public static void main(String [] args)
        {          
           firstLable:  
             for(int i=1;i<=3;i++)
               { 
                  System.out.println("Outer loop i = "+i);     
                  secondLabel:  
                    for(int j=1;j<=3;j++)
                      {    
                        if(i==2)
                          {    
                            continue firstLable;    
                          }    
                        System.out.println("  j = "+j);    
                     }    
                }
             System.out.println("line after end of firstLable ");               
         }
   }

Output:

In above program as soon as the value of i becomes 2, the continue firstLable; statement is executed which moves the execution flow to outer loop for next iteration, that is why inner loop doesn't print anything for i=2.

Java return Statement

As the return keyword itself suggest that it is used to return something. Java return statement is used to return some value from a method. Once a return statement is executed, the control flow exited from current method and returns to the calling method. The syntax of return statement is:

 return expression;
 return;

The return statement given above has two forms:

• First that returns a value. To return a value, just place the value or expression after return keyword. for eg. return 10, return a+b, return "refresh java" etc. The data type of the returned value must match the return type of it's method declaration.
• Second that doesn't returns a value. To use, just place return keyword. When the return type of method is declared as void, you can use this form of return as it doesn't return a value, or you can also leave out to use return keyword for such methods.

Java Program of return statement

 class ReturnStatement
   {
      public static void main(String [] args)
        {          
           int sum = sum(10,20);
           System.out.println("Sum = "+sum);
        }
      public static int sum(int a, int b)
        {
           return a+b;
        }
   }

Output:

In above program, a and b are integers, so a+b will also be an integer which is equivalent to return type of method sum which is also an int.