The PHP continue statement is used to continue the loop. It continues the current flow of the program and skips the remaining code at the specified condition.
The continue statement is used within looping and switch control structure when you immediately jump to the next iteration.
The continue statement can be used with all types of loops such as - for, while, do-while, and foreach loop. The continue statement allows the user to skip the execution of the code for the specified condition.
The syntax for the continue statement is given below:
jump-statement; continue;
Example
In the following example, we will print only those values of i and j that are same and skip others.
<?php
//outer loop
for ($i =1; $i<=3; $i++) {
//inner loop
for ($j=1; $j<=3; $j++) {
if (!($i == $j) ) {
continue; //skip when i and j does not have same values
}
echo $i.$j;
echo "</br>";
}
}
?>Output:
Example
In the following example, we will print the even numbers between 1 to 20.
<?php
//php program to demonstrate the use of continue statement
echo "Even numbers between 1 to 20: </br>";
$i = 1;
while ($i<=20) {
if ($i %2 == 1) {
$i++;
continue; //here it will skip rest of statements
}
echo $i;
echo "</br>";
$i++;
}
?>Output:
Example
The following example prints the value of array elements except those for which the specified condition is true and continue statement is used.
<?php
$number = array ("One", "Two", "Three", "Stop", "Four");
foreach ($number as $element) {
if ($element == "Stop") {
continue;
}
echo "$element </br>";
}
?>Output:
The continue statement accepts an optional numeric value, which is used accordingly. The numeric value describes how many nested structures it will exit.
Example
Look at the below example to understand it better:
<?php
//outer loop
for ($i =1; $i<=3; $i++) {
//inner loop
for ($j=1; $j<=3; $j++) {
if (($i == $j) ) { //skip when i and j have same values
continue 1; //exit only from inner for loop
}
echo $i.$j;
echo "</br>";
}
}
?>Output:
