make diff to ignore symbolic link

My project has the following structure ``` /project/config.mk /project/dir1/config.mk -> ../config.mk /project/dir2/config.mk -> ../config.mk ``` When I used `diff` to create the patch file, the `/project/config.mk` was done correctly, but the two symbolic links got some problems. They were both treated as new files, the diff sections were the whole content of the `config.mk` file. I tried to find a `diff` option to disable following symbolic link, but there is no such option available. Any suggestions are appreciated. As Overbose's suggestion, I create this script. It works. Thank everyone for taking time answering. ``` #!/bin/sh -v ori_dir=$1 new_dir=$2 patch_file=./patch_file if [ -f ${patch_file} ] then rm ${patch_file} fi ori_files=`cd ${ori_dir} ; find ./ -type f ! -type l` for i in ${ori_files} ; do if [ -f ${ori_dir}/$i ] then if [ -f ${new_dir}/$i ] then diff -rup ${ori_dir}/$i ${new_dir}/$i >> ${patch_file} fi fi done ```