At present, grep-files-aliases suggests "[Mm]akefile*" when you start rgrep in a Makefile.am, which is not at all what one usually wants, as it greps through long generated files. I suggest the following pattern, to go just before the Makefile entry: ("am" . "Makefile.am GNUmakefile *.mk") Makefile.am catches automake makefiles, GNUmakefile is often also used for GNU-specific hackery (e.g. by gnulib), and *.mk catches other GNU-ery such as gnulib's cfg.mk. Placing the pattern before the Makefile entry means that the latter need not be changed, but the new pattern is used for Makefile.am. The alias "am" is supposed to suggest "automake". -- http://rrt.sc3d.org