BLOCKS AND STATEMENTS

The

continue

 Statement

14.14

14.14   The

continue

 Statement

A

continue

 statement may occur only in a

while

,

do

, or

for

 statement; state 

ments of these three kinds are called

iteration statements

. Control passes to the

loop continuation point of an iteration statement.

ContinueStatement:

continue

Identifier

opt

 ;

A

continue

 statement with no label attempts to transfer control to the inner 

most enclosing

while

,

do

, or

for

 statement; this statement, which is called the

continue target

, then immediately ends the current iteration and begins a new one.

To be precise, such a

continue

 statement always completes abruptly, the reason

being a

continue

 with no label. If no

while

,

do

, or

for

 statement encloses the

continue

 statement, a compile time error occurs.

A

continue

 statement with label

Identifier

 attempts to transfer control to the

enclosing labeled statement ( 14.6) that has the same

Identifier

 as its label; that

statement, which is called the

continue target

, then immediately ends the current

iteration and begins a new one. The continue target must be a

while

,

do

, or

for

statement or a compile time error occurs. More precisely, a

continue

 statement

with label

Identifier

 always completes abruptly, the reason being a

continue

 with

label

Identifier

. If no labeled statement with

Identifier

 as its label contains the

continue

 statement, a compile time error occurs.

It can be seen, then, that a

continue

 statement always completes abruptly.

See the descriptions of the

while

 statement ( 14.10),

do

 statement ( 14.11),

and

for

 statement ( 14.12) for a discussion of the handling of abrupt termination

because of

continue

.

The preceding descriptions say  attempts to transfer control  rather than just

 transfers control  because if there are any

try

 statements ( 14.18) within the

continue target whose

try

 blocks contain the

continue

 statement, then any

finally

 clauses of those

try

 statements are executed, in order, innermost to out 

ermost, before control is transferred to the continue target. Abrupt completion of a

finally

 clause can disrupt the transfer of control initiated by a

continue

 state 

ment.

In the

Graph

 example in the preceding section, one of the

break

 statements is

used to finish execution of the entire body of the outermost

for

 loop. This

break

can be replaced by a

continue

 if the

for

 loop itself is labeled:

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