Programming Perl, 4th Edition

continue

This is usually a flow-control statement rather than a function. If there is a continue attached to a BLOCK (typically in a while or foreach), it is always executed just before the conditional is about to be evaluated again, just like the third part of a for(;;) loop. Thus it can be used to increment a loop variable, even when the loop has been continued via the next statement (which is similar to the C continue statement).

last, next, or redo may appear within a continue block; last and redo behave as if they had been executed within the main block. So will next, but since it will execute a continue block, it may be more entertaining.

while (EXPR) {
    ### redo always comes here
    do_something;
} continue {
    ### next always comes here
    do_something_else;
    # then back the top to re–check EXPR
}
### last always comes here

Omitting the continue section is equivalent to using an empty one, logically enough, so next goes directly back to check the condition at the top of the loop. See the section Loop Control in Chapter 4.

However, if the “switch” feature is enabled, continue is also an operator that exits the current when or default block and, by default, falls through to the next one. See the section The given Statement in Chapter 4.