I came across this when setting the RM variable and watching
make remove an intermediate file, so far so good.
But the make announced that it was doing this like so:

rm some_file.x

So in this case, I thought, setting RM has no effect, and
that instead the system command "rm" was used.

Further inspection reveals a call to unlink(2),
status = unlink (f->name);
in file.c, remove_intermediates (sig), and later,
    fputs ("rm ", stdout);

So it does not use the system command "rm".
Now even if there is reason to not use RM in the case of
intermediate files (?), could make announce what it is
actually doing, so to speak, instead of pretending it is
using "rm", perhaps printing "unlinking", or "deleting"
as in the info file, or somesuch?
 This could help remove unnecessary confusion.

Is it worthwhile mentioning the "limited reach" of setting
RM, in make.texi?

regards,
Georg    -email is unavailable-