continue

Additional Notes

continue is a shell builtin used inside loops. It skips the rest of the current loop body and starts the next iteration.

Use it when one item should be skipped but the loop should keep running.

Syntax

continue [n]

Parameters

• n: Optional number of nested loops to continue. Default is 1.

Examples

for file in *; do
  [ -f "$file" ] || continue
  echo "file: $file"
done

Skip non-files and keep looping.

while read -r line; do
  [ -z "$line" ] && continue
  echo "$line"
done < input.txt

Skip blank lines.

for a in 1 2; do
  for b in 1 2; do
    continue 2
  done
done

Continue the next iteration of an outer loop.

Practical Notes

• Use break when you want to leave the loop entirely.
• Overusing continue can make complex loops harder to read.
• This is a shell builtin, so behavior can vary slightly between shells.