"Break;" out of "If" Statement?

This is actually the conventional use of the break statement. If the break statement wasn't nested in an if block the for loop could only ever execute one time.

MSDN lists this as their example for the break statement.

As already mentioned that, break-statement works only with switches and loops. Here is another way to achieve what is being asked. I am reproducing as nobody else mentioned it. It's just a trick involving the do-while loop.

do {
  // do something
  if (error) {
    break;
  }
  // do something else
  if (error) {
    break;
  }
  // etc..
} while (0);

Though I would prefer the use of goto-statement.

I think the question is a little bit fuzzy - for example, it can be interpreted as a question about best practices in programming loops with if inside. So, I'll try to answer this question with this particular interpretation.

If you have if inside a loop, then in most cases you'd like to know how the loop has ended - was it "broken" by the if or was it ended "naturally"? So, your sample code can be modified in this way:

bool intMaxFound = false;
for (size = 0; size < HAY_MAX; size++)
{
  // wait for hay until EOF
  printf("\nhaystack[%d] = ", size);
  int straw = GetInt();
  if (straw == INT_MAX)
     {intMaxFound = true; break;}

  // add hay to stack
  haystack[size] = straw;
}
if (intMaxFound)
{
  // ... broken
}
else
{
  // ... ended naturally
}

The problem with this code is that the if statement is buried inside the loop body, and it takes some effort to locate it and understand what it does. A more clear (even without the break statement) variant will be:

bool intMaxFound = false;
for (size = 0; size < HAY_MAX && !intMaxFound; size++)
{
  // wait for hay until EOF
  printf("\nhaystack[%d] = ", size);
  int straw = GetInt();
  if (straw == INT_MAX)
     {intMaxFound = true; continue;}

  // add hay to stack
  haystack[size] = straw;
}
if (intMaxFound)
{
  // ... broken
}
else
{
  // ... ended naturally
}

In this case you can clearly see (just looking at the loop "header") that this loop can end prematurely. If the loop body is a multi-page text, written by somebody else, then you'd thank its author for saving your time.

UPDATE:

Thanks to SO - it has just suggested the already answered question about crash of the AT&T phone network in 1990. It's about a risky decision of C creators to use a single reserved word break to exit from both loops and switch.

Anyway this interpretation doesn't follow from the sample code in the original question, so I'm leaving my answer as it is.

You could possibly put the if into a foreach a for, a while or a switch like this

Then break and continue statements will be available

foreach ([1] as $i) if ($condition) { // Breakable if
    //some code
    $a = "b";
    // Le break 
    break;
    // code below will not be executed
}
for ($i=0; $i < 1 ; $i++) if ($condition) { 
    //some code
    $a = "b";
    // Le break 
    break;
    // code below will not be executed
}

switch(0){ case 0: if($condition){

   //some code
   $a = "b";
   // Le break 
   break;
   // code below will not be executed

}}



while(!$a&&$a=1) if ($condition) {

   //some code
   $a = "b";
   // Le break 
   break;
   // code below will not be executed

}