CVS diff --exclude excluded

[Mark Hewitt]

In the CVS (1.11.1pl1) source, the GNU option '--exclude' is
explicitly omitted from the command line parser data structures
with a comment saying it did not seem applicable for CVS.

Well, I think I have a need, and I wonder if there are any
alternatives or if there is a case for --exclude being
parsed with CVS diff.

For my automated builds, I need to ascertain if any files
have been changed since a tag was applied.  I apply tags
to record the build identifiers.  The build takes place into
discrete directory (called 'build') that is created inside the
tree by the build scripts I use. 

The problem is that if this build directory exists when I do the
'cvs diff -r <last_tag>', then the diff aborts telling me there
is no version in the repository for 'build'.  So the ideal fix is
for me to tell diff to exclude this part of the tree, but I cannot
because cvs will not pass that one on.

I would find it very difficult to move the build directory out of the
check out areas because many things depend on it being there (too many
reasons to list here).  Similarly, it would be difficult and undesirable
to remove this 'build' directory before the diff, again, the reasoning
is too long for an introductory request here.

So - can the exclude option be put in, or is there another way?

#!/mjh