[AUCTeX] Parsing first line

[Alistair Windsor]

I would like to use the first line of my tex file to specify an alternative destination for the output file using %& -output-directory. This works fine when I do pdflatex myfile.tex but when I execute latex from with auc-tex I get pdflatex "\input{myfile.tex}}" which thus bypasses the pre-compiler. Is there a way to alter this behavior? I searched the archive and looked at the customization variables without success. 

Yours, 

Alistair

Alistair Windsor
Associate Professor, Department of Mathematical Sciences
355 Dunn Hall                             Ph:     901-318-3912
University of Memphis                Fax:    901-678-2480
Memphis, TN 38152-3240