Continue statement

The continue statement is used to resume the next iteration of the enclosing FOR, WHILE or UNTIL loop.

Syntax

continue

OR

continue n

OR

...
..
for i in something
do
	[ condition ] && continue
	cmd1
	cmd2
	
done
..
...

OR

...
..
while true
do
	[ condition1 ] && continue
	cmd1
	cmd2
	[ condition2 ] && break
done
..
...

The following two examples assumes that familiarity with MySQL and BIND 9 named servers.

Example: MySQL Backup Shell Script

• Use the continue statement to return to the top of the loop by skipping the rest of the commands in in the loop.

#!/bin/bash
# A sample mysql backup script
# Must be run as the root user
# Written by Vivek Gite
# Last updated on : 23/Aug/2003
# ---------------------------------
# MySQL Login Info
MUSER="admin" 			# MySQL user
MHOST="192.168.1.100"		# MySQL server ip
MPASS="MySQLServerPassword" 	# MySQL password
 
# format dd-mm-yyyy 
NOW=$(date +"%d-%m-%Y")
 
# Backupfile path
BPATH=/backup/mysql/$NOW
 
# if backup path does not exists, create it 
[ ! -d $BPATH ] && mkdir -p $BPATH
 
# get database name lists
DBS="$(/usr/bin/mysql -u $MUSER -h $MHOST -p$MPASS -Bse 'show databases')"
 
for db in $DBS
do
	# Bakcup file name
	FILE="${BPATH}/${db}.gz"
 
	# skip database backup if database name is adserverstats or mint
	[ "$db" == "adserverstats"  ] && continue
	[ "$db" == "mint"  ] && continue
 
	# okay lets dump a database backup 
    /usr/bin/mysqldump -u $MUSER -h $MHOST -p$MPASS $db | /bin/gzip -9 > $FILE
done

Example: Bind9 named.conf Example

#!/bin/bash
# convert all domain names to a lowercase
DOMAINS="$(echo $@|tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]')"
 
# Path to named.conf
NAMEDCONF="/var/named/chroot/etc/named.conf"
 
# Check named.conf for error
NAMEDCHEKCONF="/usr/sbin/named-checkconf -t /var/named/chroot/"
 
# Display usage and die
if [ $# -eq 0 ]
then
        echo "Usage: $0 domain1 domain2 ..."
        exit 1
fi
 
# okay use for loop to process all domain names passed
# as a command line args
for d in $DOMAINS
do
	 	# if domain  alrady exits, skip the rest of the loop
        grep $d $NAMEDCONF >/dev/null
        if [ $? -eq 0 ]
        then
                echo "$d exits in in $NAMEDCONF, skiping ..."
                continue # skip it
        fi
 
        # else add domain to named.conf
        echo "Adding domain $d to $NAMEDCONF..."
 
 
        echo "zone \"${d}\" {" >> $NAMEDCONF
        echo "        type master;"  >> $NAMEDCONF
        echo "        file \"/etc/named/master.${d}\";"  >> $NAMEDCONF
        echo "        allow-transfer { slaveservers; };"  >> $NAMEDCONF
        echo "};"  >> $NAMEDCONF
 
        # Run named configuration file syntax checking tool
        $NAMEDCHEKCONF >/dev/null
        if [ $? -ne 0 ]   # error found?
        then 
        	echo "**** Warning: named-checkconf - Cannot reload named due to errors for $d ****"
        else
        	echo "**** Domain $d sucessfully added to $NAMEDCONF ****"        		        
        fi
done