Continue and pass: what's the difference?

Question

What is the difference between continue and pass in Python? I am fairly new to Python and am trying to get my code looking and acting more professionally. I can see their value, but to my untrained mind, I can't see the clear difference. I have looked here but I couldn't really see what the main difference was. I noticed continue is shown in a loop example to continue to the next loop and pass is a 'place holder' in classes, etc.

I guess my question is, how necessary are they? Should I focus on them now to add professionalism to my code, or is it more of a take it or leave it scenario?

Thanks in advance for your response.

Answer 1

Pass

pass means that you're just filling a place where a statement is usually needed

while True:
    pass  # The pass is needed syntactically

From the documentation:

pass is a null operation -- when it is executed, nothing happens. It is useful as a placeholder when a statement is required syntactically, but no code needs to be executed, for example:

Continue

continue goes to the next iteration if any.

i = 1
while i<5:
    continue   # Endless loop because we're going to the next iteration
    i = i + 1

From the documentation:

continue may only occur syntactically nested in a for or while loop, but not nested in a function or class definition or finally statement within that loop.6.1It continues with the next cycle of the nearest enclosing loop.