C break statement

The break statement can only appear in a switch body or a loop body. It causes the execution of the current enclosing switch or loop body to terminate. A break may be used to terminate the execution of a switch, while, do-while, or for.

//loop or switch case 
break;

Flowchart of break in c

Example

#include<stdio.h>
#include<stdlib.h>
void main ()
{
	int i;
	for(i = 0; i<10; i++)
	{
		printf("%d ",i);
		if(i == 5)
		break;
	}
	printf("came outside of loop i = %d",i);
	
}

Example of C break statement with switch case

Click here to see the example of C break with the switch statement.

C break statement with the nested loop

In such case, it breaks only the inner loop, but not outer loop.

#include
int main(){
int i=1,j=1;//initializing a local variable  
for(i=1;i<=3;i++){    
for(j=1;j<=3;j++){  
printf("%d &d\n",i,j);  
if(i==2 && j==2){  
break;//will break loop of j only  
}  
}//end of for loop  
return 0;
}

Output

As you can see the output on the console, 2 3 is not printed because there is a break statement after printing i==2 and j==2. But 3 1, 3 2 and 3 3 are printed because the break statement is used to break the inner loop only.

break statement with while loop

Consider the following example to use break statement inside while loop.

#include<stdio.h>
void main ()
{
    int i = 0;
    while(1)
    {
        printf("%d  ",i);
        i++;
        if(i == 10)
        break; 
    }
    printf("came out of while loop");
}

Output

break statement with do-while loop

Consider the following example to use the break statement with a do-while loop.

#include<stdio.h>
void main ()
{
   int n=2,i,choice;
   do
   {
       i=1;
       while(i<=10)
       {
           printf("%d X %d = %d\n",n,i,n*i);
           i++;
       }
       printf("do you want to continue with the table of %d , enter any non-zero value to continue.",n+1);
       scanf("%d",&choice);
	if(choice == 0)
       {
           break;
       }
       n++;
   }while(1);
}

A break will only branch out of an inner-most enclosing block, and transfers program-flow to the first statement following the block. For example, consider a nested while-loop.

while (expression) {
    while (expression) {
        if (expression)
            break;
        statements
    }
    statements
}

Here the break will terminate the inner while-loop and proceed to execute the statements of the outer while-loop.

This next example shows a fast technique for finding the smallest element in an array of length SIZE. A break is used to terminate the infinite outer while-loop.

i = SIZE;
temp = smallest = array[0];
while (1) {
    while (array[--i] > smallest)
    ;
    if (i == 0) break;
    array[0] = smallest = array[i];
}
array[0] = temp;