What is the purpose of the OFFSET clause in a query?

The purpose of the OFFSET clause in a query is to skip a certain number of rows in the result set before starting to return rows. This is particularly useful in scenarios such as paginating query results, where you want to retrieve rows starting from a specific point instead of from the very beginning. For example, in an application displaying data over multiple pages, using OFFSET allows you to skip rows that belong to previous pages and obtain only the rows relevant to the current view.

The other options address different functionalities that are not related to the OFFSET clause. Specifying the table is done using the FROM clause, setting grouping conditions is achieved with the GROUP BY clause, and ordering the results is managed by the ORDER BY clause. Each of these elements plays a distinct role in shaping the output of a SQL query, while OFFSET specifically controls the starting point of the data retrieval.