The break statement in python is used to terminate the program out of the loop containing it whenever the condition is met.
When the break statement is used in a nested loop (loop inside loop), it will terminate innermost loop after fulfilling the break criteria.
In the below example, break statement is used to get out of the while loop if the value of variable j becomes 4.
j=1
while (j < 10):
if (j == 4):
print("Getting out of the loop.")
break
print(j)
j = j + 1
1 2 3 Getting out of the loop.
color = ['red', 'blue', 'green', 'yellow', 'black', 'white']
for x in color:
if(x == 'yellow'):
break
print(x)
red blue green
In the below example, break statement terminates the inner loop whenever multiplier becomes 1000.
# nested loop without break statement
digits = [1, 2, 3]
multipliers = [10, 100, 1000]
for digit in digits:
for multiplier in multipliers:
print (digit * multiplier)
# nested loop with break statement
digits = [1, 2, 3]
multipliers = [10, 100, 1000]
for digit in digits:
for multiplier in multipliers:
if (multiplier == 1000):
break
print (digit * multiplier)
# output of nested loop without break statement 10 100 1000 20 200 2000 30 300 3000 # output of nested loop with break statement 10 100 20 200 30 300