PHP continue Statement: How to Skip Steps in Iteration

The PHP continue statement skips the rest of the loop in the current cycle. It jumps to the next cycle in the loop. This reduces extra checks or code.

Understand the continue Statement in PHP

The PHP continue statement forces the loop to move to the next cycle. It stops the current cycle early.

The syntax looks like this:

continue;

You write it like this to move on to the following loop.

You can also use a numeric argument.

continue 2;

This is used to jump out of nested loops.

You start by checking a condition. If it is true, it stops running the remaining code in the current cycle and moves the loop to the next cycle.

Here is a quick example:

for($inc = 1; $inc <= 10; $inc++) {
  
  if( $inc == 8 ) { // Skip this iteration
    continue;
  }
  
  echo "The number is $inc \n";
  
}

Here is the output:

The number is 1 
The number is 2 
The number is 3 
The number is 4 
The number is 5 
The number is 6 
The number is 7 
The number is 9 
The number is 10

The continue 2 used to skip the rest of the current cycle in two nested loops. It tells the outer loop to move to its next cycle.

for ($i = 0; $i < 3; $i++) {
    for ($j = 0; $j < 3; $j++) {
        if ($j == 1) { 
            // Skip this iteration for the two loops
            continue 2;
        }
        echo "$i, $j\n";
    }
}

The output:

0, 0
1, 0
2, 0

This skips the inner and moves the outer loop to the next cycle.

Here are the use cases:

• You skip over unwanted values in a loop.
• It avoids extra nested checks.
• It used to control loop flow with clear steps.

Use the continue Statement with Other Loops

You can use continue in for loops to skip cycles that do not meet a rule. For example:

for ($i = 0; $i < 5; $i++) {
    if ($i == 2) { // Skip this iteration
        continue; 
    }
    echo $i;
}

Output:

0134

It skips 2.

use continue in foreach loops to skip over unwanted values. Here is an example:

For example:

$items = [1, 2, 3, 4];
foreach ($items as $item) {
    if ($item == 3) { // Skip this iteration
        continue;
    }
    echo $item;
}

Here is the output:

124

It skips 3.

The continue in while loops to control flow without extra nesting. here is an example:

$i = 0;
while ($i < 5) {
    $i++;
    if ($i == 3) { // Skip this iteration
        continue;
    }
    echo $i;
}

Output:

1245

It skips 3.

You use continue in do...while loops the same way. For example

$i = 0;
do {
    $i++; 
    if ($i == 4) { // Skip this iteration
        continue;
    }
    echo $i;
} while ($i < 5);

The output:

1235

It skips 4.

Examples

Skip even numbers in a for loop:

for ($i = 1; $i <= 5; $i++) {
    if ($i % 2 == 0) { // Skip this iteration
        continue;
    }
    echo $i;
}

The output:

135

This prints only odd numbers. It checks if $i is even. It uses continue to skip even numbers.

Skip null values in an array:

$values = [1, null, 2, null, 3];
foreach ($values as $value) {
    if ($value === null) { // Skip this iteration
        continue;
    }
    echo $value;
}

This prints 1, 2, 3. It skips null.

Nested loop with continue 2:

for ($i = 0; $i < 3; $i++) {
    for ($j = 0; $j < 3; $j++) {
        if ($j == 1) {
            continue 2;
        }
        echo "$i, $j\n";
    }
}

The output:

0, 0
1, 0
2, 0

It skips the inner and outer loop current cycles. The outer loop moves ahead. It avoids unwanted pairs.

Filter strings in a list:

$words = ["apple", "", "banana", " ", "cherry"];
foreach ($words as $word) {
    if (trim($word) === "") { // Skip this iteration
        continue;
    }
    echo $word;
}

Here is the output:

applebananacherry

It removes empty or space-only strings and uses trim to check spaces.

Wrapping Up

In this article, you learned what the PHP continue statement does and how it works in different loops.

Here is a quick recap.

• The PHP continue statement skips the rest of the current loop cycle.
• It moves control to the next cycle.
• You can use a numeric argument for nested loops.
• It works in for, foreach, while, and do…while loops.
• You can use it to avoid extra nesting.

FAQs

continue;