break/continue - newbe

[Fredrik Lundh]

"Ann" <Ann at nospam.invalid> wrote:

> Thanks Jeff, that solves my problem. BTW: is there an easy way to
> break/continue out more than one level?

not really; to continue more than one level, you have to break out of the
inner loop, and make sure the logic in that loop body brings you back to
the top.

to break more than one level, you can:

1) use an exception

    class LeaveLoop(Exception): pass

    def myfunction():
        try:
            for a in ...:
                for b in ...:
                    if c:
                        raise LeaveLoop # break out of both loops
                    do something
        except LeaveLoop:
            pass

2) organize your code so you can use return rather than "multi-break"

    def myfunction():
        calculate()

    def calculate():
        for a in ...:
            for b in ...:
                if c:
                    return
                do something

3) use flags

    def myfunction():
        run = 1
        for a in ...:
            for b in ...:
                if c:
                    run = 0
                if not run:
                    break
            if not run:
                break

Solution 2 is almost always the best way to do this; solution 3 is often the worst.

</F>