In this lesson, you will learn about the continue statement in C++, its usage, and an example to better understand the topic.

C++ continue Statement

The “continue” statement in C++ allows you to skip any loop’s current iteration. The program returns to the exact first statement in the loop body when a continue statement is located in the loop, bypassing all subsequent statements for the current iteration. The loop is not ended; instead, the next iteration is started.

Basic syntax

continue;

The continue command skips the current iteration and begins the following when “number” equals 13.

The condition is then reevaluated when the “number” is changed to 12. As a result, the next iterations print the rest of the numbers to 1. Remarkably, decision-making statements are always followed by the “continue” statement.

Example

#include <iostream>

using namespace std;
int main() {
  int number;
  for (number = 20; number >= 1; number--) {
    if (number == 13) {
      continue;
    }
    cout << number << " ";
  }
  return 0;
}

Output

20 19 18 17 16 15 14 12 11 10 9 8 6 5 4 3 2 1

The program skips the iteration when the loop reaches 13, so 13 is not printed.

This concludes the C++ continue Statement lesson. The next lesson will teach about the goto Statement in C++.