How to use the 'break' and 'next' statements in Ruby?

break Statement in Ruby

In Ruby, we use the break statement in order to make sure that we exit a certain loop after a condition. For example, suppose we want to print the numbers from 1 to 10, but once we hit the number 5, we just don't want the loop to print any numbers that come after it. In such a case, we can use the break statement.

Example 1

Let's take an example and understand how the break statement works in Ruby. Consider the code shown below.

# break statement in Ruby
#!/usr/bin/ruby -w

itr = 1

# while Loop
while true
   puts itr * 5
   itr += 1

   if itr * 3 >= 25
      # Break Statement
      break
   end
end

Output

It will produce the following output −

5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40

Example 2

Let's take another example. Consider the code shown below.

# break statement in Ruby
#!/usr/bin/ruby -w

itr = 0
   # Using while
   while true do

      puts itr
      itr += 1

   # Using Break Statement
   break if itr > 5
end

Output

It will produce the following output −

0
1
2
3
4
5

next Statement in Ruby

The next statement is used to skip a particular iteration of a loop. For example, let's say that we want to print the numbers from 1 to 7, but do not want to print the number 5. In such a case, we can use the next statement.

Example 3

Let's take an example to demonstrate how it works. Consider the code shown below.

# next statement in Ruby
#!/usr/bin/ruby -w

for x in 0..5
   if x+1 < 3 then
      # next statement
      next
   end
   puts "x contains : #{x}"
end

Output

It will produce the following output −

x contains : 2
x contains : 3
x contains : 4
x contains : 5

Example 4

Let's take another example. Consider the code shown below.

for i in 6...13
   if i == 8 then
      next
   end
   puts i
end

Output

On execution, we will get the following output −

6
7
9
10
11
12