bug#26648: What's wrong w/this grep?

[Paul Eggert]

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'.