Python break outside loop

Question

in the following python code   narg len sys argv  print   length arg     narg if narg    1          print   Usage  input filename nelements nintervals          break   I get   SyntaxError   break  outside loop   Why

User · Accepted Answer

Because break cannot be used to break out of an if - it can only break out of loops. That's the way Python (and most other languages) are specified to behave.

What are you trying to do? Perhaps you should use sys.exit() or return instead?

User · Answer

This is an old question  but if you wanted to break out of an if statement  you could do   while 1      if blah          break

User · Answer

break breaks out of a loop  not an if statement  as others have pointed out  The motivation for this isn t too hard to see  think about code like  for item in some iterable              if break condition            break    The break would be pretty useless if it terminated the if block rather than terminated the loop -- terminating a loop conditionally is the exact thing break is used for

User · Answer

Because break can only be used inside a loop  It is used to break out of a loop  stop the loop

User · Answer

Because the break statement is intended to break out of loops  You don t need to break out of an if statement - it just ends at the end

[python] Python: 'break' outside loop

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