Python continue

Summary: in this tutorial, you’ll learn about the Python continue statement and how to use it to control the loop.

Introduction to the Python continue statement

The continue statement is used inside a for loop or a while loop. The continue statement skips the current iteration and starts the next one.

Typically, you use the continue statement with an if statement to skip the current iteration once a condition is True.

The following shows how to use the continue statement in a for loop:

for index in range(n):
    if condition:
       continue
    # more code hereCode language: Python (python)

And the following illustrates how to use the continue statement in a while loop:

while condition1:
    if condition2:
        continue
    # more code hereCode language: Python (python)

Using Python continue in a for loop example

The following example shows how to use the for loop to display even numbers from 0 to 9:

for index in range(10):
    if index % 2:
        continue

    print(index)Code language: Python (python)

Output:

0
2
4
6
8Code language: Python (python)

How it works.

• First, iterate over a range of numbers from 0 to 9 using a for loop with the range() function.
• Second, if the index is an odd number, skip the current iteration and start a new one. Note that the index % 2 returns 1 if the index is an odd number and 0 if the index is an even number.

Using Python continue in a while loop example

The following example shows how to use the continue statement to display odd numbers between 0 and 9 to the screen:

# print the odd numbers 
counter = 0
while counter < 10:
    counter += 1

    if not counter % 2:
        continue

    print(counter)Code language: Python (python)

Output:

1
3
5
7
9Code language: Python (python)

How it works.

• First, define the counter variable with an initial value of zero
• Second, start the loop as long as the counter is less than 10.
• Third, inside the loop, increase the counter by one in each iteration. If the counter is an even number, skip the current iteration. Otherwise, display the counter to the screen.

Summary

• Use the Python continue statement to skip the current iteration and start the next one.