When followed by a BLOCK, continue is actually a flow control statement rather than a function. If there is a continue BLOCK attached to a BLOCK (typically in a while or foreach), it is always executed just before the conditional is about to be evaluated again, just like the third part of a for loop in C. Thus it can be used to increment a loop variable, even when the loop has been continued via the next statement (which is similar to the C continue statement).
last, next, or redo may appear within a continue block; last and redo behave as if they had been executed within the main block. So will next, but since it will execute a continue block, it may be more entertaining.
while (EXPR) {
### redo always comes here
do_something;
} continue {
### next always comes here
do_something_else;
# then back the top to re-check EXPR
}
### last always comes hereOmitting the continue section is equivalent to using an empty one, logically enough, so next goes directly back to check the condition at the top of the loop.
When there is no BLOCK, continue is a function that falls through the current when or default block instead of iterating a dynamically enclosing foreach or exiting a lexically enclosing given. In Perl 5.14 and earlier, this form of continue was only available when the "switch" feature was enabled. See feature and "Switch Statements" in perlsyn for more information.