How to stop a JavaScript for loop?

To stop a for loop early in JavaScript, you use break:

var remSize = [], 
    szString,
    remData,
    remIndex,
    i;

/* ...I assume there's code here putting entries in `remSize` and assigning something to `remData`... */

remIndex = -1; // Set a default if we don't find it
for (i = 0; i < remSize.length; i++) {      
     // I'm looking for the index i, when the condition is true
     if (remSize[i].size === remData.size) {
          remIndex = i;
          break;       // <=== breaks out of the loop early
     }
}

If you’re in an ES2015 (aka ES6) environment, for this specific use case, you can use Array‘s findIndex (to find the entry’s index) or find (to find the entry itself), both of which can be shimmed/polyfilled:

var remSize = [], 
    szString,
    remData,
    remIndex;

/* ...I assume there's code here putting entries in `remSize` and assigning something to `remData`... */

remIndex = remSize.findIndex(function(entry) {
     return entry.size === remData.size;
});

find stops the first time the callback returns a truthy value, returning the element that the callback returned the truthy value for (returns undefined if the callback never returns a truthy value):

var remSize = [], 
    szString,
    remData,
    remEntry;

/* ...I assume there's code here putting entries in `remSize` and assigning something to `remData`... */

remEntry = remSize.find(function(entry) {
     return entry.size === remData.size;
});

findIndex stops the first time the callback returns a truthy value, returning the index of the element instead of the element; it returns -1 if the callback never returns a truthy value.

If you’re using an ES5-compatible environment (or an ES5 shim), you can use the new some function on arrays, which calls a callback until the callback returns a truthy value:

var remSize = [], 
    szString,
    remData,
    remIndex;

/* ...I assume there's code here putting entries in `remSize` and assigning something to `remData`... */

remIndex = -1; // <== Set a default if we don't find it
remSize.some(function(entry, index) {
    if (entry.size === remData.size) {
        remIndex = index;
        return true; // <== Equivalent of break for `Array#some`
    }
});

If you’re using jQuery, you can use jQuery.each to loop through an array; that would look like this:

var remSize = [], 
    szString,
    remData,
    remIndex;

/* ...I assume there's code here putting entries in `remSize` and assigning something to `remData`... */

remIndex = -1; // <== Set a default if we don't find it
jQuery.each(remSize, function(index, entry) {
    if (entry.size === remData.size) {
        remIndex = index;
        return false; // <== Equivalent of break for jQuery.each
    }
});

Leave a Comment