Subject: Re: bug#26648: What's wrong w/this grep?
From: Paul Eggert <[email-masked]>
To: "L. A. Walsh" <[email-masked]>, [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2017 00:55:24 -0700
List-Id: <debbugs-submit.debbugs.gnu.org>

L. A. Walsh wrote:
>>  /usr/bin/grep --color=auto -I -D skip -d skip -exclude-from=EX -P -r xrm
> /usr/bin/grep: xrm: No such file or directory
>>  /usr/bin/grep --version
> /usr/bin/grep (GNU grep) 2.21.31-adf9
>
> How did 'xrm' become a file name?

Because you omitted a "-" before "-exclude", and that caused your pattern to be 
'xclude-from=EX'.