Can you break from a Groovy "each" closure?

Nope, you can't abort an "each" without throwing an exception. You likely want a classic loop if you want the break to abort under a particular condition.

Alternatively, you could use a "find" closure instead of an each and return true when you would have done a break.

This example will abort before processing the whole list:

def a = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]

a.find { 
    if (it > 5) return true // break
    println it  // do the stuff that you wanted to before break
    return false // keep looping
}

Prints

1
2
3
4
5

but doesn't print 6 or 7.

It's also really easy to write your own iterator methods with custom break behavior that accept closures:

List.metaClass.eachUntilGreaterThanFive = { closure ->
    for ( value in delegate ) {
        if ( value  > 5 ) break
        closure(value)
    }
}

def a = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]

a.eachUntilGreaterThanFive {
    println it
}

Also prints:

1
2
3
4
5    

Replace each loop with any closure.

def list = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
list.any { element ->
    if (element == 2)
        return // continue

    println element

    if (element == 3)
        return true // break
}

Output

1
3