Jump statements are used to alter the flow of a program by jumping to a different part of the code. The main jump statements in Python are break, continue, and return. Let’s go through each of them with examples.

break Statement

The break statement is used to exit a loop prematurely when a certain condition is met.

# Using break in a for loop
for number in range(1, 10):
    if number == 5:
       break
    print(number)

Output:

1
2
3
4

In this example, the loop will terminate when number equals 5, so it will only print numbers 1 through 4.

continue Statement

The continue statement skips the rest of the code inside the loop for the current iteration and jumps back to the beginning for the next iteration.

Example:

# Using continue in a for loop
for number in range(1, 10):
    if number == 5:
        continue
    print(number)

1
2
3
4
6
7
8
9

In this example, when number is 5, the continue statement skips the print statement and moves to the next iteration, so 5 is not printed.

return Statement

The return statement is used to exit a function and optionally pass back an expression or value to the caller.

Example:

def find_first_even(numbers):
    for number in numbers:
        if number % 2 == 0:
           return number
    return None

result = find_first_even([1, 3, 7, 10, 11])
print(result)

Output:

10

In this example, the function find_first_even will return the first even number it finds in the list. Once it finds 10, it exits the function immediately with the return statement.

Combining break and continue

You can also combine these statements within the same loop to control the flow more precisely.

Example:

# Combining break and continue
for number in range(1, 10):
    if number % 2 == 0:
       continue
    if number > 7:
       break
    print(number)

Output:

1
3
5
7

In this example, even numbers are skipped because of the continue statement and the loop stops completely when number exceeds 7 due to the break statement.