Java break Statement

While working with loops, it is sometimes desirable to skip some statements inside the loop or terminate the loop immediately without checking the test expression.

In such cases, break and continue statements are used. You will learn about the Java continue statement in the next tutorial.

The break statement in Java terminates the loop immediately, and the control of the program moves to the next statement following the loop.

It is almost always used with decision-making statements (Java if…else Statement).

Here is the syntax of the break statement in Java:

break;

Example 1: Java break statement

Java while loop is used to run a specific code until a certain condition is met. The syntax of the while loop is:

class Test {
    public static void main(String[] args) {

        // for loop
        for (int i = 1; i <= 10; ++i) {

            // if the value of i is 5 the loop terminates
            if (i == 5) {
                break;
            }
            System.out.println(i);
        }
    }
}

Output

1
2
3
4

In the above program, we are using the for loop to print the value of i in each iteration. To know how for loop works, visit the Java for loop. Here, notice the statement,

if (i == 5) {
    break;
}

This means when the value of i is equal to 5, the loop terminates. Hence we get the output with values less than 5 only.