break and continue in Bash Scripting - Practice Problems & Coding Challenges

Challenge - 5 Problems

💻 Command Output

intermediate

Output of break in nested loops

What is the output of this Bash script?

Bash Scripting

for i in 1 2 3; do
  for j in a b c; do
    if [[ $j == b ]]; then
      break
    fi
    echo "$i$j"
  done
done

A

1a
1b
2a
2b
3a
3b

B

1a
2a
3a

C

1a
1b
1c
2a
2b
2c
3a
3b
3c

D

1a
2a
3a
1b
2b
3b

💡 Hint

Remember that break exits the innermost loop immediately.

The break statement stops the inner loop when j equals 'b'. So only 'a' is printed for each i.

💻 Command Output

intermediate

Effect of continue in a loop

What output does this Bash script produce?

Bash Scripting

for i in 1 2 3 4; do
  if [[ $i -eq 3 ]]; then
    continue
  fi
  echo $i
done

A

1
2
4

B

1
2
3
4

C

2
3
4

D

1
2
3

💡 Hint

Continue skips the current iteration and moves to the next.

When i equals 3, continue skips the echo command, so 3 is not printed.

📝 Syntax

advanced

Identify the syntax error with break usage

Which option contains a syntax error in using break inside a Bash script?

Bash Scripting

for i in 1 2 3; do
  if [[ $i -eq 2 ]]; then
    break 2
  fi
  echo $i
done

A break

B break 0

C break -1

D break 2

💡 Hint

Check if break accepts negative numbers as arguments.

break with a negative argument is invalid syntax in Bash and causes an error.

🚀 Application

advanced

Using continue to skip even numbers

Which script correctly prints only odd numbers from 1 to 5 using continue?

A

for i in {1..5}; do
  if [ $((i % 2)) -eq 1 ]; then
    continue
  fi
  echo $i
done

B

for i in {1..5}; do
  if (( i % 2 != 0 )); then
    continue
  fi
  echo $i
done

C

for i in {1..5}; do
  if [ $((i % 2)) -eq 0 ]; then
    echo $i
    continue
  fi
done

D

for i in {1..5}; do
  if (( i % 2 == 0 )); then
    continue
  fi
  echo $i
done

💡 Hint

Continue skips printing even numbers; only odd numbers get echoed.

Option D skips even numbers and prints odd numbers 1, 3, 5 correctly.

🧠 Conceptual

expert

Behavior of break in multiple nested loops

Consider this Bash script with nested loops. What is the output?

Bash Scripting

for i in 1 2; do
  for j in a b; do
    for k in x y; do
      if [[ $k == y ]]; then
        break 2
      fi
      echo "$i$j$k"
    done
  done
done

A

1ax
2ax

B

1ax
1ay
1bx
1by

C

1ax
1bx
2ax
2bx

D

1ax
1ay
1bx
1by
2ax
2ay
2bx
2by

💡 Hint

break 2 exits two loops up from the current one.

When k equals 'y', break 2 exits the inner two loops, skipping the rest of j and k loops for current i.