Actually a flow control statement rather than a function. If there is a continue
BLOCK attached to a BLOCK (typically in a while
or foreach
), it is always executed just before the conditional is about to be evaluated again, just like the third part of a for
loop in C. Thus it can be used to increment a loop variable, even when the loop has been continued via the next
statement (which is similar to the C continue
statement).
last
, next
, or redo
may appear within a continue
block. last
and redo
will behave as if they had been executed within the main block. So will next
, but since it will execute a continue
block, it may be more entertaining.
while (EXPR) {
### redo always comes here
do_something;
} continue {
### next always comes here
do_something_else;
# then back the top to re-check EXPR
}
### last always comes here
Omitting the continue
section is semantically equivalent to using an empty one, logically enough. In that case, next
goes directly back to check the condition at the top of the loop.