The continue statement in Python let the program skip a block of codes for current iteration in a loop. Whenever continue statement condition is fulfilled, it brings the program to the start of loop.
When the continue statement is used in a nested loop (loop inside loop), it will skip innermost loop's code block, whenever condition is fulfilled.
In the below example, continue statement is used to skip the while loop if the value of variable j becomes 4.
j = 0
while (j < 6):
j = j + 1
if(j == 4):
print('this iteration is skipped.')
continue
print(j)
1 2 3 this iteration is skipped. 5 6
color = ['red', 'blue', 'green', 'yellow', 'black', 'white']
for x in color:
if(x == 'yellow'):
print('this iteration is skipped.')
continue
print(x)
red blue green this iteration is skipped. black white
In the below example, continue statement skip the inner loop's block of codes whenever condition (when multiplier is either 'hi' or 'hello') is fulfilled.
# nested loop without continue statement
digits = [1, 2, 3]
multipliers = [10, 'hi', 'hello', 1000]
for digit in digits:
for multiplier in multipliers:
print (digit * multiplier)
# nested loop with continue statement
digits = [1, 2, 3]
multipliers = [10, 'hi', 'hello', 1000]
for digit in digits:
for multiplier in multipliers:
if(multiplier in ['hi', 'hello']):
continue
print (digit * multiplier)
# output of nested loop without continue statement 10 hi hello 1000 20 hihi hellohello 2000 30 hihihi hellohellohello 3000 # output of nested loop with continue statement 10 1000 20 2000 30 3000