How to break out of the forEach

Array.prototype.forEach

forEach is such an useful method.
But…how can I break the forEach loop?

Well… you can't break forEach.

Example:

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var ary = ["JavaScript", "Java", "CoffeeScript", "TypeScript"]; ary.forEach(function(value, index, _ary) { console.log(index + ": " + value); return false; });

Fiddle
The result should look like

1 2 3 4

0: JavaScript 1: Java 2: CoffeeScript 3: TypeScript

It's still iterating through all items in the array.

Well, dang, it sucks. What should I do if I want to stop the loop based on the condition?
It's simple.

Don't use “forEach”. Use “some” or “every”.

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Array.prototype.some

some is pretty much the same as forEach but it break when the callback returns true.

Example:

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var ary = ["JavaScript", "Java", "CoffeeScript", "TypeScript"]; ary.some(function (value, index, _ary) { console.log(index + ": " + value); return value === "CoffeeScript"; });

Fiddle
The result should look like

1 2 3

0: JavaScript 1: Java 2: CoffeeScript

Oh? What happened to TypeScript? Since the third iteration returned true, we successfully stopped the loop!

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Array.prototype.every

every is almost identical to some except it's expecting false to break the loop.

Example:

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var ary = ["JavaScript", "Java", "CoffeeScript", "TypeScript"]; ary.every(function(value, index, _ary) { console.log(index + ": " + value); return value.indexOf("Script") > -1; });

Fiddle
The result should look like

1 2	0: JavaScript 1: Java

Since “Java” doesn't really contain “Script” in it so the callback for the iteration returned “false”. It broke the loop.

Now you can break loops whenever you want! Enjoy.