Doing: diff -r -X .ignore-list <src-dir> <dest-dir> doesn't seem to work if .ignore-list contains entries of the form <dir>/<file> Entries of the form <file> do however work. This is a problem since I might have multiple files named <file> in different sub-directories, some of which I don't want ignored. There doesn't seem to be much information regarding pattern syntax in the manpage for diff. Ash