Why does Java allow for labeled breaks on arbitrary statements?

Question

I just learned today that the following Java code is perfectly legal:

myBlock: {
    /* ... code ... */

    if (doneExecutingThisBlock())
        break myBlock;         


        

Answer 1

Adding to Stephen C's answer, if (something) you cannot break out of a nested loop. These situations do happen in numerical algorithms. One simple example here - you cannot break out of the i-loop without the named for. Hope this helps.

public class JBreak  {

    private int brj;

    public JBreak (String arg) {
        brj = Integer.parseInt (arg);       
    }

    public void print () {
        jbreak:
        for (int i = 1 ; i < 3 ; i++) {
            for (int j = 0 ; j < 5 ; j++) {
                if ((i*j) == brj)
                    break jbreak;
                System.out.println ("i,j: " + i + "," + j);
    }}}

    public static void main (String[] args) {
        new JBreak(args[0]).print();
}}