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break Statement
The break statement jumps out of the innermost for or
while loop that encloses it. The break statement may only
be used within the body of a loop. The following example finds the
smallest divisor of a given integer, and also identifies prime numbers:
num = 103;
div = 2;
while (div*div <= num)
if (rem (num, div) == 0)
break;
endif
div++;
endwhile
if (rem (num, div) == 0)
printf ("Smallest divisor of %d is %d\n", num, div)
else
printf ("%d is prime\n", num);
endif
When the remainder is zero in the first while statement, Octave
immediately breaks out of the loop. This means that Octave
proceeds immediately to the statement following the loop and continues
processing. (This is very different from the exit statement
which stops the entire Octave program.)
Here is another program equivalent to the previous one. It illustrates
how the condition of a while statement could just as well
be replaced with a break inside an if:
num = 103;
div = 2;
while (1)
if (rem (num, div) == 0)
printf ("Smallest divisor of %d is %d\n", num, div);
break;
endif
div++;
if (div*div > num)
printf ("%d is prime\n", num);
break;
endif
endwhile