continue - Man Page

continue for, while, or until loop

Prolog

This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux implementation of this interface may differ (consult the corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.

Synopsis

continue [n]

Description

If n is specified, the continue utility shall return to the top of the nth enclosing for, while, or until loop. If n is not specified, continue shall behave as if n was specified as 1. Returning to the top of the loop involves repeating the condition list of a while or until loop or performing the next assignment of a for loop, and re-executing the loop if appropriate.

The value of n is a positive decimal integer. If n is greater than the number of enclosing loops, the outermost enclosing loop shall be used. If there is no enclosing loop, the behavior is unspecified.

The meaning of “enclosing” shall be as specified in the description of the break utility.

Options

None.

Operands

See the Description.

Stdin

Not used.

Input Files

None.

Environment Variables

None.

Asynchronous Events

Default.

Stdout

Not used.

Stderr

The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

Output Files

None.

Extended Description

None.

Exit Status

0

Successful completion.

>0

The n value was not an unsigned decimal integer greater than or equal to 1.

Consequences of Errors

Default.

The following sections are informative.

Application Usage

None.

Examples

for i in *
do
    if test -d "$i"
    then continue
    fi
    printf '"%s" is not a directory.\n' "$i"
done

Rationale

None.

Future Directions

None.

See Also

Section 2.14, Special Built-In Utilities

Info

2017 IEEE/The Open Group POSIX Programmer's Manual