[pdftex] (Highly) local pdftex configuration?

[Hartmut Henkel]

On Thu, 15 Mar 2007, Magnus Lie Hetland wrote:

> 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/

this shell function e. g. gives the pdflatex help:

function pdflatex () { /usr/local/texlive/2007/bin/x86_64-linux/pdflatex --help $*; }

so it should work also with --shell-escape. The full path is there as it
seems to block infinite self-recursion; maybe this can be done also by
some quoting trick?

Regards, Hartmut