diff --git a/util/check-cocci b/util/check-cocci
index d9268b808d..7231596c9d 100755
--- a/util/check-cocci
+++ b/util/check-cocci
@@ -3,7 +3,10 @@
 ret=0
 for spatch in cocci/*.spatch; do
     patch="$(dirname "$spatch")/$(basename "$spatch" .spatch).patch"
-    spatch --sp-file="$spatch" --use-gitgrep --dir bin --dir lib --dir fuzz --very-quiet > "$patch";
+    : > "$patch"
+    for dir in bin lib fuzz; do
+	spatch --sp-file="$spatch" --use-gitgrep --dir "$dir" --very-quiet >> "$patch";
+    done
     if [ "$(< "$patch" wc -l)" -gt "0" ]; then
 	cat "$patch"
 	ret=1