4.3 Control Statements: continue, assert, pass, return (BT101CO)

These keywords are primarily used inside loops to control iteration behavior.

• continue: Skips the rest of the code in the current iteration and jumps to the next one.
• pass: A placeholder statement that does absolutely nothing. Use it when code is required syntactically (like inside an empty function or loop) but you aren't ready to implement logic.

# Example of pass
def future_function():
    pass  # To be implemented later

# Example of continue
for i in range(5):
    if i == 2:
        continue # Skips printing 2
    print(i, end=" ") # Output: 0 1 3 4

The assert keyword is used for debugging. It checks if a condition is True. If the condition is False, it raises an AssertionError and stops the program.

# Syntax: assert condition, "Error Message"

age = -5
assert age >= 0, "Age cannot be negative!"
# Since -5 is not >=0, this will crash with an AssertionError

The return statement is used inside functions to send a value back to the caller. It exits the function immediately.

def add(a, b):
    return a + b

result = add(10, 20)
print(result) # Output: 30

Note: We will explore functions in depth in Unit 5.