NAME

break — exit from for, while, or until loop

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

Exit from the smallest enclosing for, while, or until loop, if any; or from the nth enclosing loop if n is specified. The value of n is an unsigned decimal integer ≥ 1. The default is equivalent to n=1. If n is greater than the number of enclosing loops, the last enclosing loop shall be exited from. Execution continues with the command immediately following the loop.

EXIT STATUS

0

Successful completion.

>0

The n value was not an unsigned decimal integer ≥ 1.

The following section is informative.

RATIONALE

Example: for i in ∗ do if test −d "$i" then break fi done Consideration was given to expanding the syntax of the break and continue to refer to a label associated with the appropriate loop, as a preferable alternative to the [n] method. This new method was proposed late in the development of the standard and adequate consensus could not be formed to include it. However, POSIX. 2 does reserve the namespace of command names ending with a colon. It is anticipated that a future implementation could take advantage of this and provide something like: outofloop: for i in a b c d e do for j in 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 do if test −r "${i}${j}" then break outofloop fi done done and that this might be standardized after implementation experience is achieved.