How can nested while loops affect the flow of a PHP script?

Nested while loops can greatly affect the flow of a PHP script by potentially causing infinite loops or significantly slowing down the script's execution. It is important to carefully plan and structure nested while loops to ensure they terminate correctly and efficiently. One way to mitigate issues with nested while loops is to use proper loop control mechanisms such as break and continue statements to manage the flow of execution. 

// Example of using break and continue statements to control nested while loops

$outerCounter = 0;
$innerCounter = 0;

while ($outerCounter < 3) {
    echo "Outer loop iteration: $outerCounter <br>";
    
    while ($innerCounter < 3) {
        echo "Inner loop iteration: $innerCounter <br>";
        
        $innerCounter++;
        
        if ($innerCounter == 2) {
            break; // exit the inner loop early
        }
    }
    
    $innerCounter = 0; // reset inner counter
    $outerCounter++;
}

Keywords

nested while loops PHP script flow control iteration nested loops

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