Which statistical function would you use to count the number of occurrences of a field?

The count() function is specifically designed to tally the number of occurrences of a specified field within a dataset. When you want to determine how many times a particular value appears in your data, or simply the number of events that contain that field, count() effectively performs this operation. This function scans through the dataset and adds one to the total each time it encounters the specified field.

Other statistical functions like sum(), avg(), and max() serve different purposes. Sum() calculates the total of numerical values for a given field, avg() computes the average of those numerical values, and max() identifies the largest value within a numerical dataset. None of these functions are intended for counting occurrences, which is why they would not apply in this context. Therefore, for counting the number of occurrences of a field, count() is the appropriate and correct choice.