Really OT: Any tar experts here?

Sorry for the off-topic post, but I'm tired of beating what's left of my brains on what's left of my desk... Please, Please, Please, private email replies only. Non-essential info: I'm writing a selective backup program in Perl to read a config file, use the info to create a list of directories to be backed up, then give that listing to tar to back up the information. Essential info: Problem is, I have directories that I want backed up, but with subdirectories that I *don't* want backed up; yet when I feed the list of dir's to tar, it recursively backs up the dir's anyway. Is there a way (program switch, special version of tar, anything...) to tell tar to not recurse subdirectories, or do I need to write a sub-program that extracts each individual filename? Thanks in advance for any help that can be provided. Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger --- sysadmin, Iceberg Computers Recycling is good, right??? Ok, so I'll recycle an old .sig. If at first you don't succeed, nuclear warhead disarmament should *not* be your first career choice.