diff --git a/documentation/dev-manual/dev-manual-common-tasks.xml b/documentation/dev-manual/dev-manual-common-tasks.xml
index 658919dfc0..2319be1d84 100644
--- a/documentation/dev-manual/dev-manual-common-tasks.xml
+++ b/documentation/dev-manual/dev-manual-common-tasks.xml
@@ -1885,8 +1885,11 @@
 
             <para>
                 The previous example also specifies a patch file.
-                Patch files are files whose names end in
-                <filename>.patch</filename> or <filename>.diff</filename>.
+                Patch files are files whose names usually end in
+                <filename>.patch</filename> or <filename>.diff</filename> but
+                can end with compressed suffixes such as
+                <filename>diff.gz</filename> and
+                <filename>patch.bz2</filename>, for example.
                 The build system automatically applies patches as described
                 in the
                 "<link linkend='new-recipe-patching-code'>Patching Code</link>" section.