Give an example of how the 'break' keyword can be used to exit a loop prematurely.
The 'break' keyword in PHP is used to prematurely exit a loop, whether it is a 'for', 'while', or 'do-while' loop. When encountered, the 'break' statement terminates the loop immediately, and the program execution continues with the next statement after the loop. This can be particularly useful when you want to stop the execution of a loop based on a certain condition, without waiting for the loop to naturally reach its end.
Let's consider an example to illustrate the usage of the 'break' keyword in a loop. Suppose we have an array of numbers, and we want to find the first occurrence of a number that is divisible by 5. We can use a 'foreach' loop to iterate over the array, and when we find the desired number, we can break out of the loop.
php
$numbers = [2, 7, 10, 15, 21, 25, 30];
foreach ($numbers as $number) {
if ($number % 5 == 0) {
echo "Found a number divisible by 5: $number";
break;
}
}
In this example, the 'foreach' loop iterates over each element in the '$numbers' array. The 'if' condition checks if the current number is divisible by 5 using the modulo operator (%). If the condition is true, the program executes the 'echo' statement, displaying the number that meets the criteria. Following that, the 'break' statement is encountered, causing the loop to terminate immediately.
If we run this code, the output will be: "Found a number divisible by 5: 15". As soon as the loop encounters the number 15, which is divisible by 5, the loop is exited, and the program continues with the next statement after the loop.
The 'break' statement can also be used with nested loops. In such cases, the 'break' statement only exits the innermost loop it is contained in. If you want to exit multiple nested loops simultaneously, you can use labeled loops and specify the label in the 'break' statement.
The 'break' keyword in PHP is a powerful tool to prematurely exit a loop. It allows you to control the flow of your program by terminating the loop based on specific conditions. Whether used in a simple loop or within nested loops, the 'break' statement provides flexibility and control over the execution of your code.
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