use strict;

my @stuff = (1, 2, 3, 4, 5);

foreach my $s (@stuff) {
   test($s);
   print "past\n";
}

sub test { my ( $s ) = @_;
   if ($s == 3) {
      next;  #note that this is not within a loop in the
             #scope of the subroutine
    }
    else {
      print $s . "\n";
    }
}