Scripted builds of C++ Eclipse Managed Makefiles

Question

I have a collection of C++ projects that use managed makefiles inside Eclipse. I build them all, and run an existing deploy script to place all the compiled results into a target directory on the system.

I'd like a way to automate the build process without having to open the IDE, but due to external constraints from the project owner, I have to use managed make.

Once I kickoff a build for the first time inside the Eclipse IDE, the Debug / Release directories are created, and the makefiles are autogenerated. Once they are all present, I can call make from the command line, across all the projects, run an overall deploy script, etc. This will work up until the point that code changes would cause the makefiles to differ (adding/removing source files, or changing build parameters) The big problem with this is that it requires me to open eclipse and manually cause the generation of the makefiles.

I see two options:

1. Check the generated makefiles into revsion control (even though they're generated, I know), and commit them whenever they, after generation, have differed from the previous content.

2. Find a way to either open eclipse in a scriptable way, and cause makefile generation, or to find some alternate way to generate the makefiles from the .project files.

Option 1 is obviously subject to problems if I or other developers don't remember to commit the files, or if we update the Debug makefile but not the Release makefile, etc. It also makes me feel dirty to commit a generated file.

Option 2 seems much better, if its feasible.

Does a method to do option 2 exist? Are there other options I haven't considered?

I recognize similarity with a continouous integration server, but This is not the same use case. Essentially I'm building a package that gets installed on a development system as a testing release of a system library. So I'm operating as a developer, I just want to reduce variance out of the deploy process itself.