Loops · Lesson 5 of 6

break

Exit a loop early when its stopping condition is reached.

Lesson

break exits the nearest loop immediately. Use it for a clear early-stop condition, such as finding the first matching item. If several nested loops need to stop together, refactor into a function or use a deliberate loop level rather than obscuring control flow. This search stops once the requested value is found. Further guidance Before running a loop, identify the value that changes and the condition that eventually stops it. Check empty collections and one-item collections as well as the normal case. Prefer foreach when iterating a collection, and keep early exits easy to understand. Practice task: Create a fresh example for break. Predict the result before running it, then change one input and explain why the result changes. Test a normal case and one boundary or invalid case where it applies. Compare your output with the example and note one rule you would use in a real project.

Code examples

break

PHP

foreach ([4, 8, 12, 16] as $value) {
    if ($value === 12) {
        echo $value;
        break;
    }
}

Expected output

Key points

Exit a loop early when its stopping condition is reached.
Identify the loop state and a clear termination condition.
Test empty and one-item inputs as well as the normal case.

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