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NATURAL is a Fourth-generation programming language from Software AG.

* Hello World in NATURAL
WRITE 'Hello World!'
END

It has the "ESCAPE TOP" flow control instruction, which is similar to "continue" in C, or "Continue For" in "Visual Basic.Net 2005", except that it also works within subroutines to both return from the routine and then continue the calling statement's processing loop.

Like "continue", it avoids large amounts of identation levels when using nested instruction blocks inside any loop.

Example with ESCAPE TOP:

DEFINE DATA LOCAL
1 I (N3)                                    /* 3 digits without decimals
END-DEFINE
FOR I = 2 TO 100
  IF (I / 2 * 2) = I AND I > 2
    WRITE 'Number' I 'is divisible by 2'
    ESCAPE TOP
  END-IF
  IF (I / 3 * 3) = I AND I > 3
    WRITE 'Number' I 'is divisible by 3'
    ESCAPE TOP
  END-IF
  IF (I / 5 * 5) = I AND I > 5
    WRITE 'Number' I 'is divisible by 5'
    ESCAPE TOP
  END-IF
  IF (I / 7 * 7) = I AND I > 7
    WRITE 'Number' I 'is divisible by 7'
    ESCAPE TOP
  END-IF
  IF (I / 11 * 11) = I AND I > 11
    WRITE 'Number' I 'is divisible by 11'
    ESCAPE TOP
  END-IF
  WRITE 'Number' I 'is prime'
END-FOR
END

The levels of indentation can be automatically adjusted with the STRUCT command in the Natural Editor.

The same example, without ESCAPE TOP:

DEFINE DATA LOCAL
1 I (N3)                                    /* 3 digits without decimals
END-DEFINE
FOR I = 2 TO 100
  IF (I / 2 * 2) = I AND I > 2
    WRITE 'Number' I 'is divisible by 2'
  ELSE
    IF (I / 3 * 3) = I AND I > 3
      WRITE 'Number' I 'is divisible by 3'
    ELSE
      IF (I / 5 * 5) = I AND I > 5
        WRITE 'Number' I 'is divisible by 5'
      ELSE
        IF (I / 7 * 7) = I AND I > 7
          WRITE 'Number' I 'is divisible by 7'
        ELSE
          IF (I / 11 * 11) = I AND I > 11
            WRITE 'Number' I 'is divisible by 11'
          ELSE
            WRITE 'Number' I 'is prime'
          END-IF
        END-IF
      END-IF
    END-IF
  END-IF
END-FOR
END

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