The break and continue both are used to skip the iteration of a loop. These keywords are helpful in controlling the flow of the program. Difference between break and continue:
- The break statement terminates the whole iteration of a loop whereas continue skips the current iteration.
- The break statement terminates the whole loop early whereas the continue brings the next iteration early.
- In a loop for switch, break acts as terminator for case only whereas continue 2 acts as terminator for case and skips the current iteration of loop.
Program 1: This program illustrates the continue statement inside a loop.
php
<?phpfor ($i = 1; $i < 10; $i++) { if ($i % 2 == 0) { continue; } echo $i . " ";}?> |
Output: 
Program 2: This program illustrates the break statement inside a loop.
php
<?phpfor ($i = 1; $i < 10; $i++) { if ($i == 5) { break; } echo $i . " ";}?> |
Output: 
Program 3: Using switch inside a loop and continue 2 inside case of switch.
php
<?phpfor ($i = 10; $i <= 15; $i++) { switch ($i) { case 10: echo "Ten"; break; case 11: continue 2; case 12: echo "Twelve"; break; case 13: echo "Thirteen"; break; case 14: continue 2; case 15: echo "Fifteen"; break; } echo "<br> Below switch, and i = " . $i . ' <br><br> ';}?> |
Output: 
Let us see the differences in a tabular form -:
| Break | Continue | |
| 1. | The break statement is used to jump out of a loop. | The continue statement is used to skip an iteration from a loop |
| 2. |
Its syntax is -: break; |
Its syntax is -: continue; |
| 3. | The break is a keyword present in the language | continue is a keyword present in the language |
| 4. | It can be used with loops ex-: for loop, while loop. | It can be used with loops ex-: for loop, while loop. |
| 5. | The break statement is also used in switch statements | We can use continue with a switch statement to skip a case. |
