What are the jump expressions in Kotlin?

Overview

The jump expressions in Kotlin are used to control the flow of the execution of the program. Kotlin supports the following jump expressions:

• return
• break
• continue

1. The return expression

The return expression returns some value generated through an expression or value of a variable or a constant value.

This expression is often used to return values from a function after some execution.

Example

In the following code snippet, we can see the use of the return expression in Kotlin:

Explanation

In the above code snippet:

• Lines 1 to 6: We define a function sum() that accepts two parameters, n1 and n2, calculates its sum and returns the result using the return expression in line 5.
• Lines 8 to 11: We invoke the function sum()inside the function main(), and print the result to the console.

2. The break expression

The break expression is used to terminate the closest enclosing loop.

If there are multiple nested loops, and the break expression is in the most inner-loop, this expression will terminate only the most inner-most loop .

Example

In the following code snippet, we can see the use of the break expression in Kotlin:

Explanation

In the above code snippet, inside the main() function:

• Line 2: We declare a variable n and assign it some value.
• Lines 4 to 12: We use a nested to loop and print the value of i.
• Line 7: We use the break expression to terminate the inner-loop if i = 4.

3. The continue expression

The continue expression is very similar to the break expression. The only difference is that the continued expression will only break or skip the current iteration.

Example

In the following code snippet, we can see the use of the continue expression in Kotlin:

Explanation

In the above code snippet, inside the main() function:

• Line 2: We declare a variable n and assign it some value.
• Lines 4 to 12: We use a nested to loop and print the value of i.
• Line 7: We use the continue expression to skip the iteration if i = 4.