What do the pass, break, and continue statements do in Python loops?

These three keywords control loop flow in different ways, and confusing them is a common source of bugs.

pass: Does absolutely nothing. It is a syntactic placeholder used wherever Python requires a statement but you have nothing to write yet — an empty function body, an empty class, a stub except block. It is not a loop-control statement; it just lets the loop body be syntactically valid.

def todo():
    pass   # implement later

for i in range(5):
    pass   # loop runs 5 times doing nothing

break: Immediately exits the innermost enclosing loop. Any else clause on the loop is skipped. Typical use: linear search where you want to stop as soon as you find the item.

for name in ['Alice', 'Bob', 'Carol']:
    if name == 'Bob':
        print('Found Bob')
        break

continue: Skips the rest of the current iteration and jumps immediately to the next one. The loop itself keeps running.

for i in range(10):
    if i % 2 == 0:
        continue   # skip even numbers
    print(i)       # prints 1 3 5 7 9

A common interview trick question: what does pass do in a loop that also prints something before the pass? The answer is: the print still executes — pass only affects the statement position, not any previous code in the block.

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