Informix Error -596: Bad EXIT/CONTINUE statement. Not within a statement-name loop.

Reasons / Common Causes

-596 fires when an SPL routine's EXIT/CONTINUE statement appears outside any loop — per the official guidance, these statements must be placed within a FOREACH, WHILE, or FOR loop.

1. EXIT/CONTINUE placed at the routine's top level, outside any loop construct — the direct, only cause.
2. EXIT/CONTINUE placed inside an IF block that isn't itself nested inside a loop, mistaking conditional nesting for loop nesting.
3. A loop restructured or removed during editing, leaving a now-orphaned EXIT/CONTINUE statement behind that used to be inside it.

Solutions / Resolution

1. Move the EXIT/CONTINUE statement inside a FOREACH, WHILE, or FOR loop, per the official guidance.
2. Confirm the loop actually wraps the statement, not just an IF block that happens to sit near a loop — trace the actual nesting of BEGIN/END or loop boundaries.
3. If the intent was to exit the routine entirely rather than a loop, use RETURN instead of EXIT, since EXIT specifically exits a loop, not the routine.

Examples

The disallowed placement

CREATE PROCEDURE process_orders()
  DEFINE v_status CHAR(10);
  IF v_status = 'cancelled' THEN
    EXIT;
  END IF;
END PROCEDURE;
-- -596: EXIT isn't inside a FOREACH/WHILE/FOR loop

Corrected — inside a loop

CREATE PROCEDURE process_orders()
  DEFINE v_status CHAR(10);
  FOREACH SELECT status INTO v_status FROM orders
    IF v_status = 'cancelled' THEN
      EXIT FOREACH;
    END IF;
  END FOREACH;
END PROCEDURE;

Diagnostic Checks

1. Trace the actual loop nesting around every EXIT/CONTINUE statement in the routine, confirming a FOREACH/WHILE/FOR genuinely wraps it, not just an IF block.

Related Errors / Related Topics

No closely related error codes are cross-referenced for -596 in this set yet.

EXIT/CONTINUE require an actual enclosing loop — confirm the nesting, and use RETURN instead if exiting the routine itself was the real intent.