Exiting a shell script with nested loops

Your problem is not nested loops, per se. It's that one or more of your inner loops is running in a subshell.

This works:

#!/bin/bash

for i in $(seq 1 100); do
        echo i $i
        for j in $(seq 1 10) ; do
                echo j $j
                sleep 1
                [[ $j = 3 ]] && { echo "I've had enough!" 1>&2; exit 1; }
        done
        echo "After the j loop."
done
echo "After all the loops."

output:

i 1
j 1
j 2
j 3
I've had enough!

This presents the problem you have described:

#!/bin/bash

for i in $(seq 1 100); do
        echo i $i
        cat /etc/passwd | while read line; do
                echo LINE $line
                sleep 1
                [[ "$line" = "daemon:x:2:2:daemon:/sbin:/sbin/nologin" ]] && { echo "I've had enough!" 1>&2; exit 1; }
        done
        echo "After the j loop."
done    
echo "After all the loops."

output:

i 1
LINE root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
LINE bin:x:1:1:bin:/bin:/sbin/nologin
LINE daemon:x:2:2:daemon:/sbin:/sbin/nologin
I've had enough!
After the j loop.
i 2
LINE root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
LINE bin:x:1:1:bin:/bin:/sbin/nologin
LINE daemon:x:2:2:daemon:/sbin:/sbin/nologin
I've had enough!
After the j loop.
i 3
LINE root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
(...etc...)

Here is the solution; you have to test the return value of inner loops that run in subshells:

#!/bin/bash

for i in $(seq 1 100); do
        echo i $i
        cat /etc/passwd | while read line; do
                echo LINE $line
                sleep 1
                [[ "$line" = "daemon:x:2:2:daemon:/sbin:/sbin/nologin" ]] && { echo "I've had enough!" 1>&2; exit 1; }
        done
        [[ $? != 0 ]] && exit $?
        echo "After the j loop."
done
echo "After all the loops."

Note the test: [[ $? != 0 ]] && exit $?

output:

i 1
LINE root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
LINE bin:x:1:1:bin:/bin:/sbin/nologin
LINE daemon:x:2:2:daemon:/sbin:/sbin/nologin
I've had enough!

The variables "i" and "j" brought to you courtesy of Fortran. Have a nice day. :-)

You can use break.

From help break:

Exit a FOR, WHILE or UNTIL loop.  If N is specified, break N enclosing loops.

So for exiting from three enclosing loops i.e. if you have two nested loops inside main one, use this to exit from all of them:

break 3

exit does terminate the whole shell, or the current sub-shell:

$ bash -c 'for i in 1 2 3; do for j in 4 5 6; do echo $i; exit 1; echo $j; done; done'
1
$ echo $?
1