diff --git a/scripts/timestamp.pl b/scripts/timestamp.pl
index dc47e24aa..9735dd61e 100755
--- a/scripts/timestamp.pl
+++ b/scripts/timestamp.pl
@@ -1,24 +1,35 @@
 #!/usr/bin/perl
 use strict;
+use File::stat;
+
+sub crawl($$) {
+	my $path = shift;
+	my $options = shift;
+	my @results = $path;
+	opendir(DIR,$path);
+	foreach my $file (readdir(DIR)) {
+		if ($file !~m/^(\.(svn|\.?)|CVS$options)$/) {
+			push @results, crawl("$path/$file",$options);
+		}
+	}
+	closedir(DIR);
+	return @results; 
+}
 
 sub get_ts($$) {
 	my $path = shift;
 	my $options = shift;
 	my $ts = 0;
 	my $fn = "";
-	open FIND, "find $path -not -path \\*.svn\\* -and -not -path \\*CVS\\* $options 2>/dev/null |";
-	while (<FIND>) {
-		chomp;
-		my $file = $_;
-		open FILE, "<$file";
-		my @stat = stat FILE;
-		close FILE;
-		if ($stat[9] > $ts) {
-			$ts = $stat[9];
+	my @search = crawl($path,$options);
+	while (@search) {
+		my $file = shift @search;
+		my $mtime = stat($file)->mtime;
+		if ($mtime > $ts) {
+			$ts = $mtime;
 			$fn = $file;
 		}
 	}
-	close FIND;
 	return ($ts, $fn);
 }
 
@@ -30,7 +41,7 @@ while (@ARGV > 0) {
 	my $path = shift @ARGV;
 	if ($path =~ /^-x/) {
 		my $str = shift @ARGV;
-		$options{"-x"} .= " -and -not -path \\*".$str."\\*"
+		$options{"-x"} .= "|".$str;
 	} elsif ($path =~ /^-/) {
 		$options{$path} = 1;
 	} else {