Jump Statements: break, continue, and pass

break: Exiting a Loop Early

The break statement immediately terminates the innermost loop it is in. As soon as break is executed, the program’s control jumps to the very next statement after the loop.

It’s most often used to stop a loop when a specific condition is met, saving unnecessary iterations.

When to Use break:

• When you find the item you are searching for.
• When an error condition occurs that makes continuing the loop pointless.
• When the user signals they want to quit.

Example: Finding the First Multiple of 7

Imagine you want to find the first number divisible by 7 in a list. Once you find it, there’s no need to check the rest.

Checking 1...
Checking 12...
Checking 19...
Checking 21...
Found it! 21 is divisible by 7.
Loop finished.

continue: Skipping the Current Iteration

The continue statement skips the rest of the code in the current iteration and immediately jumps to the beginning of the next iteration of the loop.

Unlike break, it doesn’t terminate the loop entirely; it just moves on to the next item.

When to Use continue:

• When you want to ignore certain items in a sequence.
• To avoid deeply nested if statements by handling special cases at the start of the loop.

Example: Printing Only Odd Numbers

Let’s loop through a range of numbers but only process the ones that are odd.

Found an odd number: 1
Found an odd number: 3
Found an odd number: 5
Found an odd number: 7
Found an odd number: 9

pass: Doing Nothing (A Placeholder)

The pass statement is a null operation—when it is executed, nothing happens. It’s a placeholder for when a statement is syntactically required, but you don’t want any code to execute.

When to Use pass:

• As a placeholder for a function or class you haven’t implemented yet.
• Inside a loop or if statement where you need a block of code but have nothing to put there yet.

Example: Stubbing Out a Function

You’re designing a program and know you’ll need a function for a specific task, but you’re not ready to write the logic for it.

def process_data(data):
    # TODO: Implement data processing logic later
    pass # Avoids an IndentationError
 
def main():
    print("Program starts.")
    process_data([]) # We can call the function, and it does nothing
    print("Program ends.")
 
main()

Output:

Program starts.
Program ends.

Example: In a Loop

You might want to handle a specific case differently in the future but ignore it for now.

Processing number: 1
Processing number: 2
Processing number: 4
Processing number: 5