The next command is like the continue statement in C; it starts the next iteration of the loop:
LINE: while (<STDIN>) {
next LINE if /^#/; # discard comments
#...
}Note that if there were a continue block on the above, it would get executed even on discarded lines. If the LABEL is omitted, the command refers to the innermost enclosing loop.
See also "continue" for an illustration of how last, next, and redo work.