C# break

C# break statement is used to break a loop abruptly and come out of the loop.

The syntax of break statement is:

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 break;

Example 1 – C# break statement with for loop

In the following example, we use break statement to come out of the for loop even before the condition in for loop is evaluated to false.

Program.cs

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using System;

namespace CSharpExamples {
    class Program {
        static void Main(string[] args) {
            for(int i=0;i<10;i++){
                if(i==5){
                    break;
                }
                Console.WriteLine(i);
            }
        }
    }
}

When i equals 5, we are breaking the for loop. The program execution then proceeds with the statement(s) after for statement (if any present).

Output

PS D:\workspace\csharp\HelloWorld> dotnet run
0
1
2
3
4

Example 2 – C# break statement with while loop

In the following example, we use break statement to come out of the while loop even before the condition in for loop is evaluated to false.

Program.cs

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using System;

namespace CSharpExamples {
    class Program {
        static void Main(string[] args) {
            int i=0;
            while(i<10){
                if(i==5){
                    break;
                }
                Console.WriteLine(i);
                i++;
            }
        }
    }
}

when i equals 5, we are breaking the while loop, and the program execution proceeds with the statements after while statement.

Output

PS D:\workspace\csharp\HelloWorld> dotnet run
0
1
2
3
4

Example 3 – C# break statement with foreach

In the following example, we use break statement to come out of the foreach iteration before foreach executes for all the elements in the given array.

Program.cs

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using System;

namespace CSharpExamples {
    class Program {
        static void Main(string[] args) {
            int[] nums = {2, 41, 15, 64};
            foreach(int num in nums){
                if(num==15){
                    break;
                }
                Console.WriteLine(num);
            }
        }
    }
}

When num is equal to 15, we are breaking the foreach, and the program execution continues with the rest of statement(s) after foreach block.

Output

PS D:\workspace\csharp\HelloWorld> dotnet run
2
41

Note

  • You can have multiple break statements inside a loop for different conditions.

Summary

In this C# Tutorial, we learned to use C# continue statement to skip the execution of subsequent statements in the loop for a particular state of iteration.