While Loops, break, and continue

A while loop repeats as long as a condition stays true. Use it when you do not know in advance how many times you will loop, like waiting for a correct guess. You will also learn break and continue, the two ways to steer any loop.

What You'll Learn

• The while loop and why the condition must eventually become false
• break to exit a loop early
• continue to skip to the next iteration
• Choosing between for and while

The while Loop

The most important line is count += 1. Without something that moves the condition toward false, the loop would run forever. Always make sure your condition will eventually stop.

break: Exit Early

break immediately stops the loop. It is perfect for "keep going until you find it":

continue: Skip One

continue skips the rest of the current iteration and jumps to the next:

while True with break

A common pattern is an intentional forever-loop that you exit with break once a condition is met:

This is exactly the shape of the number guessing game: keep asking until the guess is right, then break.

for vs while

• Use for when you know the items or the count in advance
• Use while when you loop until some condition changes

Key Takeaways

• while condition: repeats while the condition is true
• Always change something so the loop can end
• break exits the loop; continue skips to the next iteration
• while True: plus break loops until a condition is met
• for for known counts, while for unknown counts