The `next' Statement
====================

   The `next' statement forces `awk' to immediately stop processing the
current record and go on to the next record.  This means that no
further rules are executed for the current record.  The rest of the
current rule's action is not executed either.

   Contrast this with the effect of the `getline' function (
see Explicit Input with `getline': Getline.).  That too causes `awk' to
read the next record immediately, but it does not alter the flow of
control in any way.  So the rest of the current action executes with a
new input record.

   At the highest level, `awk' program execution is a loop that reads
an input record and then tests each rule's pattern against it.  If you
think of this loop as a `for' statement whose body contains the rules,
then the `next' statement is analogous to a `continue' statement: it
skips to the end of the body of this implicit loop, and executes the
increment (which reads another record).

   For example, if your `awk' program works only on records with four
fields, and you don't want it to fail when given bad input, you might
use this rule near the beginning of the program:

     NF != 4 {
       printf("line %d skipped: doesn't have 4 fields", FNR) > "/dev/stderr"
       next
     }

so that the following rules will not see the bad record.  The error
message is redirected to the standard error output stream, as error
messages should be.  See Standard I/O Streams: Special Files.

   According to the POSIX standard, the behavior is undefined if the
`next' statement is used in a `BEGIN' or `END' rule.  `gawk' will treat
it as a syntax error.

   If the `next' statement causes the end of the input to be reached,
then the code in the `END' rules, if any, will be executed.  
See `BEGIN' and `END' Special Patterns: BEGIN/END.