Which SQL feature allows for grouping records based on a specified column?

The correct choice is the GROUP BY clause, as it is specifically designed to group records in a query based on one or more specified columns. When using GROUP BY, you can aggregate data, applying functions such as COUNT(), SUM(), AVG(), and more to the groups formed from the specified column(s). This allows for more insightful analyses of data, as it facilitates the summarization of information.

For instance, if you have a sales dataset and want to summarize total sales by each product, you would use the GROUP BY clause to group records by the product identifier, allowing you to compute the total sales figures for each product effectively.

In contrast, the other options serve different purposes:

The ORDER BY clause is used for sorting records in a specific order, either ascending or descending, based on one or more columns but does not create groupings.

The HAVING clause is used to filter groups created by the GROUP BY statement based on aggregate conditions after grouping has occurred. It's not responsible for the grouping itself, but rather it is used to constrain the results of a GROUP BY.

The JOIN clause is used to combine rows from two or more tables based on related columns. While important for querying related data, it does not operate on grouping records as part of its