Python - Continue Statement

Python continue statement is used to skip the execution of the program block and returns the control to the beginning of the current loop to start the next iteration. When encountered, the loop starts next iteration without executing the remaining statements in the current iteration.

The continue statement is just the opposite to that of break. It skips the remaining statements in the current loop and starts the next iteration.

Syntax of continue Statement

looping statement:
   condition check:
      continue

Flow Diagram of continue Statement

The flow diagram of the continue statement looks like this −

Python continue Statement with for Loop

In Python, the continue statement is allowed to be used with a for loop. Inside the for loop, you should include an if statement to check for a specific condition. If the condition becomes TRUE, the continue statement will skip the current iteration and proceed with the next iteration of the loop.

Example

Let’s see an example to understand how the continue statement works in for loop.

for letter in 'Python':
   if letter == 'h':
      continue
   print ('Current Letter :', letter)
print ("Good bye!")

When the above code is executed, it produces the following output −

Current Letter : P
Current Letter : y
Current Letter : t
Current Letter : o
Current Letter : n
Good bye!

Python continue Statement with while Loop

Python continue statement is used with ‘for’ loops as well as ‘while’ loops to skip the execution of the current iteration and transfer the program’s control to the next iteration.

Example: Checking Prime Factors

Following code uses continue to find the prime factors of a given number. To find prime factors, we need to successively divide the given number starting with 2, increment the divisor and continue the same process till the input reduces to 1.

num = 60
print ("Prime factors for: ", num)
d=2
while num > 1:
   if num%d==0:
      print (d)
      num=num/d
      continue
   d=d+1

On executing, this code will produce the following output −

Prime factors for: 60
2
2
3
5

Assign different value (say 75) to num in the above program and test the result for its prime factors.

Prime factors for: 75
3
5
5