Korn Shell Programming by Example

break

Official Description

Exits from the enclosing for, while, until, or select loop, if any.

Syntax

break [n]

Options

None

Oddities

You can supply a number (n) indicating how many levels of nesting to break out of.

Might not have its own man page. Look in ksh man page for information.

Example

$ cat buzz1
#! /bin/ksh
integer x=17
while :                      # Potentially infinite loop
do
x=x+1
if (( x>20 ))
then
         break               # Break out when x>20
fi
done
print $x
$
$ buzz1
21
$
$
$ cat buzz2
#! /bin/ksh
integer x=17
integer y=0
for (( y=0; y<5; y++ ))      # Outer loop
do
        while :              # Inner loop
        do
        x=x+1
        if (( x>20 ))
        then
                 break 2     # Break out of both
        fi
        done
done
print $x
print $y
$
$ buzz2
21
0
$