What is the purpose of the MOD operator in programming?

The purpose of the MOD operator is to return the remainder part of a division. This operator is commonly used in programming to determine how much is left over after dividing one number by another. For example, if you divide 10 by 3, the result is 3 with a remainder of 1. The MOD operator will provide you with that remainder, which is 1 in this case.

This functionality is particularly useful in various scenarios, such as determining if a number is even or odd (where you can check if the remainder when divided by 2 is 0 for even numbers), or in looping structures where you may want to execute something every nth iteration.

Other options describe different arithmetic operations: multiplication, subtraction, and addition, which do not align with the primary function of the MOD operator, focusing instead on producing a result based solely on the quotient of the numbers involved rather than their remainder.