Using break and continue

I don't think using those keywords is bad practice.

For C/C++, it's kind of like this:

x= -1; 

while (x < 4){ 

  x++; 

  printf ("nothing\r\n"); 

  if (x == 1) continue; 

  printf ("one\r\n"); 

  if (x == 2) break; 

  printf ("three\r\n"); 

} 

printf ("finished loop\r\n");

The code above should set x to 0. Then it would enter a block for a loop that exits when x is no longer less than 4. It would increment (add 1 to) x, making x be 0. It would print "nothing" followed by a new line. x is not 1 yet, so it would skip whatever's after the 'if' parentheses (do nothing). Then print "one" followed by a new line. x is not 2, so operating as usual. Output "three" followed by a new line. The instruction pointer or program counter goes back to the beginning of the block (where it says to print "nothing").

Increment x, making it 1. Print "nothing" followed by a new line. If x is 1, which it at this moment is, then continue, or in other words jump back to the start of the block. The instruction pointer (or program counter) is now pointing at where the curly bracket starts.

Increment x, so it's now 2. Print "nothing" followed by a new line. x is not 1, so do nothing. Print "one" followed by a new line. If x is 2, which it currently is, then break from the loop, or in other words jump forward to the end of the block. The instruction pointer is now pointing at where the curly bracket ends.

Print "finished loop" followed by a new line.

So basically, in a loop, the continue keyword makes the execution of the program jump to the start of the loop block, while the break keyword makes the execution of the program jump to the end of the loop block.

Also, in 'for' loops, such as this:

for (statement1; statement2; statement3) code...

, the continue keyword executes statement3, as well as jumping back to the start of the loop block.

* * *

As for other languages, a lot of them have at least something similar. For example, JavaScript has the same keywords under the same names. From what I can recall at the moment, the Perl notion for 'continue' and 'break' is 'next' and 'last', respectively. In Ruby, the same would be 'next' and 'break', instead of 'continue' and 'break', in that order.

I hope this helps :D .