In Oracle Database 12c, the behavior of the ORDER BY clause is guided by several rules:
Option B: An ORDER BY clause can perform a binary sort.
A binary sort is the default sorting mechanism in Oracle Database, which is based on the binary representation of the data.
Option C: An ORDER BY clause can perform a linguistic sort.
Oracle supports linguistic sorting through the use of the NLS_SORT parameter, which can be set to various linguistic and cultural norms.
Option D: By default, an ORDER BY clause sorts rows in ascending order.
If no ASC or DESC keyword is specified, Oracle will sort the results in ascending order by default.
Options A and E are incorrect:
Option A is not universally true; the position of NULL values in the sort order can be controlled by settings or specific SQL syntax (NULLS FIRST or NULLS LAST).
Option E is incorrect as the HAVING clause filters groups after data has been grouped by the GROUP BY clause and cannot be logically placed before ORDER BY in processing order.