What is the function of braces in C programming?

Braces, also known as curly brackets, play a crucial role in C programming by indicating a block of statements. When used, they group multiple statements together, forming a single compound statement. This allows the programmer to control the flow of execution in structures such as loops or conditional statements. For example, in an if statement, the code block enclosed in braces will only execute if the specified condition evaluates to true. Similarly, in the context of a function, the braces define the scope of the function body, containing all the statements that make up that function. This encapsulation of statements helps maintain clear organization in the code, improving readability and manageability.

The other choices refer to different concepts within C programming. While functions are defined using keywords like 'void' or the return type and a name, encapsulating a variable isn't a function of braces; instead, variables are declared separately. Comments, which are used to explain code, are denoted with different syntax (like // for single-line comments or /.../ for multi-line comments), not braces.