The CRITICAL command, along with its qualifiers, displays and/or modifies the status and contents of the critical section for the current region. The critical section provides a control mechanism. This field identifies, by its process identification number (PID), the process presently managing updates to database.

The format of the CRITICAL command is:

         CR[ITICAL] /I[NIT]
                    /O[WNER]
                    /REL[EASE]
                    /REM[OVE]
                    /S[EIZE]
        

By default, the CRITICAL command assumes the /OWNER qualifier, which displays the status of the critical section.