What does break statement do in java?

Question

Does anyone knows what the group_skip do?

Maybe it is a basic programming, but I've been programming using Java for some years and just found it today.

group_skip: do {
    event = stepToNextEvent(FormController.STEP_OVER_GROUP);
    switch (event) {
        case FormEntryController.EVENT_QUESTION:
        case FormEntryController.EVENT_END_OF_FORM:
            break group_skip;
    }
} while (event != FormEntryController.EVENT_END_OF_FORM);

Thanks!

Answer 1

This is a labelled loop, when break group_skip; statement is executed, it will jump out of the do while loop which is labelled as group_skip

boolean isTrue = true;
    outer: for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
        while (isTrue) {
            System.out.println("Hello");
            break outer;
        } // end of inner while
        System.out.println("Outer loop"); // does not print
    } // end of outer loop
   System.out.println("Good Bye");

This outputs

Hello
Good Bye

You can get the concept clear here.

• There is a labelled for loop called outer and there is inner while loop
• When inner for loop is being executed, it encounters break outer; statement
• The outer for loop has a System.out.println"Outer loop" statement but that does not get printed.
• This is because break outer causes the control to jump out of labelled for loop directly

Now this example for continue statement

outer: for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
        for (int j = 0; j < 5; j++) {
            System.out.println("Hello");
            continue outer;
        } // end of inner loop
        System.out.println("outer"); // this won't print
    } // end of outer loop
    System.out.println("Good bye");

This prints

Hello
Hello
Hello
Hello
Hello
Good bye

• There is a labelled for loop here and an inner for loop
• Inner for loop prints Hello and continues to the outer loop.
• Because of this, the statements below inner for loop are skipped and outer loop continues to execute.
• At the end of outer for loop, Good Bye is printed

Hope this makes everything clear.