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Break the Loop (When You Must)

Explore how to control loop execution in Python using break to stop loops when a condition is met and continue to skip values. This lesson teaches you to manage infinite loops and handle user input efficiently, helping you build interactive and responsive programs.

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Sometimes, we don’t want to run the entire code—just part of it—until a certain condition is met, like a user typing “quit” or a robot reaching a goal.
This is where Python gives us control tools like if statements to check conditions, and break to stop a loop immediately when needed.

It’s like saying: “Keep going… until this happens—then stop!”

Stopping a loop when a condition is met

In the example, we use a while True loop to keep asking the user for input until they type "exit." Then, we use a break to stop the loop.

while True:
    answer = input("Type 'exit' to quit: ")
    if answer == "exit":
        break
    print("You typed:", answer)
The code keeps asking for input until we type “exit”

  • Line 1: while True: creates a loop that never stops on its own—it runs forever unless we manually break out of it.

  • Line 2: input("Type 'exit' to quit: ") asks the user to type something and stores it in the variable answer.

  • Line 3: if answer == "exit": checks if the user typed "exit".

  • Line 4: break immediately stops the loop if the condition is met.

  • Line 5: print("You typed:", answer) only runs if the loop continues—so it shows what the user typed (unless it was "exit").

This pattern is common when we don’t know how many times a loop should run—we just wait for a certain input or event to stop it.

We now know how to break out of a loop whenever we want!

How it works

  • while True: creates an infinite loop.

  • break stops the loop early if a condition is met.

  • This pattern is useful for menus, games, and interactive programs.

Skipping specific values in a loop

The continue keyword lets us skip the rest of the current loop and go straight to the next round.

Python
for i in range(5):
    if i == 2:
        continue
    print("i =", i)

We have used continue to skip the number 2 and go straight to the next iteration.

Use continue when you want to ignore certain values or conditions but keep looping.