19.6.8 continue Statement

The continue statement looks like ‘continue;’, and its effect is to jump immediately to the end of the innermost loop construct. If it is a for-loop, the next thing that happens is to execute the loop’s advance expression.

For example, this loop increments p until the next null character or newline, and operates (in some way not shown) on all the characters in the line except for spaces. All it does with spaces is skip them.

for (;*p; ++p)
  {
    /* End loop if we have reached a newline.  */
    if (*p == '\n')
      break;
    /* Pay no attention to spaces.  */
    if (*p == ' ')
      continue;
    /* Operate on the next character.  */
    …
  }

Executing ‘continue;’ skips the loop body but it does not skip the advance expression, p++.

We could also write it like this:

for (;*p; ++p)
  {
    /* Exit if we have reached a newline.  */
    if (*p == '\n')
      break;
    /* Pay no attention to spaces.  */
    if (*p != ' ')
      {
        /* Operate on the next character.  */
        …
      }
  }

The advantage of using continue is that it reduces the depth of nesting.

Contrast continue with the break statement. See break Statement.