Hello!

This is a bit orthogonal to the initial question, but since the answer to that is "NO, you can't put comments in the protections file", there is another way to achieve similar benefits. We just store the protections file as a versioned file in a directory reserved for that purpose. That way you get change tracking history, rollback capability, etc. All the usual benefits of using an SCM tool apply to most of the Perforce control files (protect, typemap, triggers, group specs, etc.). Then you can put useful info in the changelist descriptions, e.g. "Code Freeze -- //depot/Main/ProjA."

Some sites take it to the next level, using a "push" model, so that submits of new versions of the control files cause them to become live. For example, checking in "//depot/admin/config/protect" could be made to cause that version to be uploaded to perforce via a 'p4 protect -i < client_path_to_protect_file' or something like that.

The push model is a nice extra, but I would require at a minimum that the control files be versioned if I were, say, doing a CM audit of a Perforce installation. Otherwise some bonehead might slip and do a 'p4 protect -i < some_empty_file' and there goes your data! Sure, you could get it back from a backup or from the last checkpoint, but that's A LOT slower than just resyncing and running 'p4 sync' again.

I hope this helps!

Tom