CONTINUE(1P)

PROLOG
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux implementation of this interface may differ (consult the corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.

NAME
continue — continue for, while, or until loop

SYNOPSIS

continue [n]

DESCRIPTION
If n is specified, the continue utility shall return to the top of the nth enclosing for, while, or until loop. If n is not specified, continue shall behave as if n was specified as 1. Returning to the top of the loop involves repeating the condition list of a while or until loop or performing the next assignment of a for loop, and re-executing the loop if appropriate.

The value of n is a positive decimal integer. If n is greater than the number of enclosing loops, the outermost enclosing loop shall be used. If there is no enclosing loop, the behavior is unspecified.

The meaning of ``enclosing'' shall be as specified in the description of the break utility.

OPTIONS
None.

OPERANDS
See the DESCRIPTION.

STDIN
Not used.

INPUT FILES
None.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
None.

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS
Default.

STDOUT
Not used.

STDERR
The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

OUTPUT FILES
None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION
None.

EXIT STATUS

0   Successful completion.

>0  The n value was not an unsigned decimal integer greater than or equal to 1.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS
Default.

The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE
None.

EXAMPLES

for i in *
do
    if test -d "$i"
    then continue
    fi
    printf '"%s" is not a directory.\n' "$i"
done

RATIONALE
None.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS
None.

SEE ALSO
Section 2.14, Special Built-In Utilities

COPYRIGHT
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1-2017, Standard for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, 2018 Edition, Copyright (C) 2018 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .

Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page are most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of the source files to man page format. To report such errors, see https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .