[pdftex] (Highly) local pdftex configuration?

[Magnus Lie Hetland]

Hi!

I'm trying to set up a build for a pdflatex project where I use  
rubber [1], which doesn't seem to allow me to pass command-line  
switches to the underlying program (in my case, pdflatex). I'd like  
to run pdflatex with --shell-escape, but I haven't been able to find  
any nice way of doing it (save running pdflatex once *before* I run  
rubber, for example). I've tried alias pdflatex="pdflatex --shell- 
escape", to no avail.

I don't really want to add it to the global texmf.cnf, but in a local  
one -- local to the build directory -- I wouldn't mind adding  
"shell_escape = t". Can I do it this locally, preferably using shell  
variables or the like in the Makefile or something?

[1] http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/~beffara/soft/rubber/

-- 
Magnus Lie Hetland
http://hetland.org