Visual Basic .NET - Exit and Continue Statement

In VB.NET, Exit and Continue statements are used to control the flow of execution of a loop. These statements allow you to exit a loop or skip certain iterations based on certain conditions.

Exit Statement:

The Exit statement is used to immediately exit a loop when a certain condition is met. It can be used with For, For Each, While and Do loops. When the Exit statement is executed, the control is transferred to the statement immediately following the loop.

For example, the following code demonstrates how to use the Exit statement to exit a For loop:

For i As Integer = 1 To 10
   If i = 5 Then
      Exit For
   End If
   Console.WriteLine(i)
Next

In this example, the loop will print the numbers 1 to 4, and then exit the loop when i equals 5.

Continue Statement:

The Continue statement is used to skip an iteration in a loop when a certain condition is met. It can also be used with For, For Each, While and Do loops. When the Continue statement is executed, the control is transferred to the next iteration of the loop.

For example, the following code demonstrates how to use the Continue statement to skip an iteration in a For loop:

For i As Integer = 1 To 10
   If i Mod 2 = 0 Then
      Continue For
   End If
   Console.WriteLine(i)
Next

In this example, the loop will print only the odd numbers from 1 to 9. When i is an even number, the loop skips that iteration using the Continue statement.

It is important to note that the Exit and Continue statements should be used sparingly and only when necessary, as they can make the code harder to read and understand. In most cases, it is better to use conditional statements within the loop to control the flow of execution.