break vs continue in PHP

In PHP, both break and continue are control flow statements used within loops (like for, while, and do-while) to alter the flow of execution based on certain conditions.

1. break statement:
   The break statement is used to exit the current loop prematurely. When PHP encounters the break statement within a loop, it immediately terminates the loop, and the program execution continues with the code after the loop. This is useful when you want to stop the loop early based on a particular condition.

Example:

for ($i = 1; $i <= 10; $i++) {
    if ($i === 5) {
        break; // Exit the loop when $i equals 5
    }
    echo $i . ' ';
}

Output:

1 2 3 4

2. continue statement:
   The continue statement is used to skip the current iteration of the loop and move on to the next iteration. When PHP encounters the continue statement within a loop, it skips the remaining code in the current iteration and jumps to the next iteration. This is useful when you want to skip specific elements in an array or perform conditional processing for certain values.

Example:

for ($i = 1; $i <= 10; $i++) {
    if ($i % 2 === 0) {
        continue; // Skip even numbers
    }
    echo $i . ' ';
}

Output:

1 3 5 7 9

In this example, the continue statement is used to skip the even numbers (2, 4, 6, 8, 10) in the loop, and only odd numbers are displayed.

Both break and continue statements are powerful tools for controlling the flow of loops and can be used to improve the efficiency and readability of your code. However, it’s essential to use them judiciously and ensure that they are used in a way that makes the logic of your code clear and easy to understand.