CONTINUE(1)                POSIX Programmer's Manual               CONTINUE(1)



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

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 .



IEEE/The Open Group                  2017                          CONTINUE(1)
