PROLOG

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

NAME

       break — exit from for, while, or until loop

SYNOPSIS

       break [n]

DESCRIPTION

       The  break  utility shall exit from the smallest enclosing for, while, or until loop, if any; or from the
       nth enclosing loop if n is specified. The value of n is an unsigned decimal integer greater than or equal
       to 1. The default shall be equivalent to n=1.  If n is greater than the number of  enclosing  loops,  the
       outermost enclosing loop shall be exited. Execution shall continue with the command immediately following
       the loop.

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 break
           fi
       done

RATIONALE

       In  early  proposals, consideration was given to expanding the syntax of break and continue to refer to a
       label associated with the appropriate loop as a preferable alternative to the  n  method.  However,  this
       volume  of  POSIX.1‐2008  does  reserve  the  name  space  of command names ending with a <colon>.  It is
       anticipated that a future implementation could take advantage of this and provide something like:

           outofloop: for i in a b c d e
           do
               for j in 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
               do
                   if test −r "${i}${j}"
                   then break outofloop
                   fi
               done
           done

       and that this might be standardized after implementation experience is achieved.

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, 2013 Edition,
       Standard for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open  Group  Base
       Specifications  Issue 7, Copyright (C) 2013 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc
       and The Open Group.  (This is POSIX.1-2008 with the 2013 Technical Corrigendum 1 applied.) 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.unix.org/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                                   2013                                         BREAK(1POSIX)