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# last

Perl 5 version 18.2 documentation
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# last

Perl functions A-Z | Perl functions by category | The 'perlfunc' manpage

- last LABEL

- last EXPR
- last

  The `last` command is like the `break` statement in C (as used in loops); it immediately exits the loop in question. If the LABEL is omitted, the command refers to the innermost enclosing loop. The `last EXPR` form, available starting in Perl 5.18.0, allows a label name to be computed at run time, and is otherwise identical to `last LABEL` . The `continue` block, if any, is not executed:

          LINE: while (<STDIN>) {        last LINE if /^$/;  # exit when done with header        #...    }

  `last` cannot be used to exit a block that returns a value such as `eval {}` , `sub {}` , or `do {}` , and should not be used to exit a grep() or map() operation.

  Note that a block by itself is semantically identical to a loop that executes once. Thus `last` can be used to effect an early exit out of such a block.

  See also continue for an illustration of how `last`, `next`, and `redo` work.

  Unlike most named operators, this has the same precedence as assignment. It is also exempt from the looks-like-a-function rule, so `last ("foo")."bar"` will cause "bar" to be part of the argument to `last`.