What's the best way to break from nested loops in JavaScript?

What's the best way to break from nested loops in Javascript?

//Write the links to the page.
for (var x = 0; x < Args.length; x++)
{
   for (var Heading in Navigation.Headings)
   {
      for (var Item in Navigation.Headings[Heading])
      {
         if (Args[x] == Navigation.Headings[Heading][Item].Name)
         {
            document.write("<a href=\"" 
               + Navigation.Headings[Heading][Item].URL + "\">" 
               + Navigation.Headings[Heading][Item].Name + "</a> : ");
            break; // <---HERE, I need to break out of two loops.
         }
      }
   }
}

Just like Perl,

loop1:
    for (var i in set1) {
loop2:
        for (var j in set2) {
loop3:
            for (var k in set3) {
                break loop2;  // breaks out of loop3 and loop2
            }
        }
    }

as defined in EMCA-262 section 12.12. [MDN Docs]

Unlike C, these labels can only be used for continue and break, as Javascript does not have goto.


Wrap that up in a function and then just return.


I'm a little late to the party but the following is a language-agnostic approach which doesn't use GOTO/labels or function wrapping:

for (var x = Set1.length; x > 0; x--)
{
   for (var y = Set2.length; y > 0; y--)
   {
      for (var z = Set3.length; z > 0; z--)
      {
          z = y = -1; // terminates second loop
          // z = y = x = -1; // terminate first loop
      }
   }
}

On the upside it flows naturally which should please the non-GOTO crowd. On the downside, the inner loop needs to complete the current iteration before terminating so it might not be applicable in some scenarios.


I realize this is a really old topic, but since my standard approach is not here yet, I thought I post it for the future googlers.

var a, b, abort = false;
for (a = 0; a < 10 && !abort; a++) {
    for (b = 0; b < 10 && !abort; b++) {
        if (condition) {
            doSomeThing();
            abort = true;
        }
    }
}

Quite simple:

var a = [1, 2, 3];
var b = [4, 5, 6];
var breakCheck1 = false;

for (var i in a) {
    for (var j in b) {
        breakCheck1 = true;
        break;
    }
    if (breakCheck1) break;
}