(octave.info)The break Statement

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10.6 The break Statement
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The ‘break’ statement jumps out of the innermost ‘while’, ‘do-until’, or
‘for’ loop that encloses it.  The ‘break’ statement may only be used
within the body of a loop.  The following example finds the smallest
divisor of a given integer, and also identifies prime numbers:

     num = 103;
     div = 2;
     while (div*div <= num)
       if (rem (num, div) == 0)
         break;
       endif
       div++;
     endwhile
     if (rem (num, div) == 0)
       printf ("Smallest divisor of %d is %d\n", num, div)
     else
       printf ("%d is prime\n", num);
     endif

   When the remainder is zero in the first ‘while’ statement, Octave
immediately “breaks out” of the loop.  This means that Octave proceeds
immediately to the statement following the loop and continues
processing.  (This is very different from the ‘exit’ statement which
stops the entire Octave program.)

   Here is another program equivalent to the previous one.  It
illustrates how the CONDITION of a ‘while’ statement could just as well
be replaced with a ‘break’ inside an ‘if’:

     num = 103;
     div = 2;
     while (1)
       if (rem (num, div) == 0)
         printf ("Smallest divisor of %d is %d\n", num, div);
         break;
       endif
       div++;
       if (div*div > num)
         printf ("%d is prime\n", num);
         break;
       endif
     endwhile