break command

Synopsis

/break

Description

break, like its C counterpart, exits a loop early. It stops the remaining commands in the current body and leaves the innermost active construct that handles a break. Execution then continues after that construct.

Supported handlers include while, until, do with while, for, foreach, and the fe/fec family. A matching switch case also handles break: it stops the case body without breaking an enclosing loop.

There are no options or required arguments. Supplied arguments are ignored; break 2 does not exit two nesting levels. On success, the command produces no output. It is available in every build and requires no server connection.

Restrictions

Outside an active break-handling construct, the command prints Cannot BREAK here. and does not interrupt execution. A plain block or an alias definition is not itself a break handler.

The context is determined at execution time. A break inside an alias called by a running loop can propagate out through the call and exit that loop, unless a nearer construct handles it. Do not assume an alias boundary prevents that effect.

Use continue to skip to another iteration, or return to finish an alias call. break does not return a value.

Examples

This otherwise endless loop stops after 20 iterations:

@ loop = 0
while (1) {
    @ loop++
    if (loop == 20) { break }
}
echo Completed $loop iterations

Inside a command block, statements after the break in that body are skipped:

while (1) { echo Once; break; echo This is skipped }
echo Execution continues here

These are script examples; at the interactive prompt, use the leading / for command statements.

See also

alias, continue, return, for, while, until, and switch.

Source

See source/commands.c for the break registration, breakcmd() error handling, and parse_block() propagation. source/if.c implements the loop and switch handlers that enable and consume breaks.