How to break from nested loops in Ruby?

Question

assume the following ruby code:

bank.branches do |branch|
  branch.employees.each do |employee|
    NEXT BRANCH if employee.name = \"John Doe\"
  end
end
         


        

Answer 1

Other posts have referenced an idea similar to creating a "switch" variable. See below for a clear example of how it works. Keep in mind the second loop will still be running until it reaches the end of the employee array, but will not execute any code after the switch is flipped. This is not the optimal way to do this as it can be unnecessarily time expensive if your employee array is large.

def workforce
  bank.branches do |branch|
    switch = 0
    branch.employees.each do |employee|
      if switch == 1
       next
      end  
      if employee.name = "John Doe"
       switch = 1
      end
   end
 end

After the switch is flipped the inner array will no longer be active and the parent loop will move to the next branch with the switch reset. Obviously more switches can be used for more complex cases.