Set CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX in toolchain.cmake - cmake

I have a toolchain.cmake defined for the platform I'm building for and in it I've specified the location where I want my files installed. However, when I run make install, the files go to the default location /usr/..... My toolchain.cmake is setup as follows:
# this one is important
SET(CMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME Linux)
#this one not so much
SET(CMAKE_SYSTEM_VERSION 1)
# specify the cross compiler
SET(CMAKE_C_COMPILER /usr/local/naoqi-sdk-2.1.4.13-mac64/ctc-mac64-atom-2.1.4.13/cross/bin/i686-aldebaran-linux-gnu-gcc)
SET(CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER /usr/local/naoqi-sdk-2.1.4.13-mac64/ctc-mac64-atom-2.1.4.13/cross/bin/i686-aldebaran-linux-gnu-g++)
# where is the target environment
SET(CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH /usr/local/naoqi-sdk-2.1.4.13-mac64/ctc-mac64-atom-2.1.4.13/cross/i686-aldebaran-linux-gnu/sysroot)
SET(CMAKE_SYSROOT /usr/local/naoqi-sdk-2.1.4.13-mac64/ctc-mac64-atom-2.1.4.13/cross/i686-aldebaran-linux-gnu/sysroot)
# search for programs in the build host directories
SET(CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH_MODE_PROGRAM ONLY)
# for libraries and headers in the target directories
SET(CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH_MODE_LIBRARY ONLY)
SET(CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH_MODE_INCLUDE ONLY)
SET(CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH_MODE_PACKAGE ONLY)
SET(THREADS_PTHREAD_ARG 1)
SET(CMAKE_INSTALL_FULL_INCLUDEDIR /usr/local/naoqi-sdk-2.1.4.13-mac64/ctc-mac64-atom-2.1.4.13/cross/i686-aldebaran-linux-gnu/sysroot/usr/local/include)
SET(CMAKE_INSTALL_FULL_LIBDIR /usr/local/naoqi-sdk-2.1.4.13-mac64/ctc-mac64-atom-2.1.4.13/cross/i686-aldebaran-linux-gnu/sysroot/usr/local/lib)
SET(CMAKE_INSTALL_FULL_MANDIR /usr/local/naoqi-sdk-2.1.4.13-mac64/ctc-mac64-atom-2.1.4.13/cross/i686-aldebaran-linux-gnu/sysroot/share/man)
SET(CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX /usr/local/naoqi-sdk-2.1.4.13-mac64/ctc-mac64-atom-2.1.4.13/cross/i686-aldebaran-linux-gnu/sysroot)
SET(CMAKE_STAGING_PREFIX /usr/local/naoqi-sdk-2.1.4.13-mac64/ctc-mac64-atom-2.1.4.13/cross/i686-aldebaran-linux-gnu/sysroot)
As can be seen, I've gone overkill on setting paths, but none of them work. In order to have make install place the file in the correct location, I have to pass -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<path> in the cmake command as shown below:
cmake -G "Unix Makefiles" -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=~/myScripts/Toolchain-Naoqi.2.1.4.13.cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/local/naoqi-sdk-2.1.4.13-mac64/ctc-mac64-atom-2.1.4.13/cross/i686-aldebaran-linux-gnu/sysroot ..
It would be nice not to have the path set in my toolchain.cmake as it applies to all the projects I'm building.

The reason why your paths are overwritten is that the call to project() comes after the execution of this Toolchain file. The project() function, among other things, sets CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX to some default value.
It is good practice not to specify CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX in your CMakeLists.txt, to ensure cross-platform compatibility. For example, your approach would prevent someone with a non-Unix-like system of using your file.
If you really want to go on and specify it within the code, I see two options:
Hardcode CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX in one of the CMakeLists.txt of your project, i.e. after the call to project().
Provide a custom 'platform' file, located in some_folder/Platform/<My_Platform>.cmake, and add some_folder to your CMAKE_MODULE_PATH. In this platform file, you then specify CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX, such that you don't need to clobber your other CMakeLists.txt (my assumption here is that you only need this installation folder for this specific platform).

It looks like this issue is caused by a bug in CMake itself, based on an old bug report in their former bug tracker, which was closed without fixing the problem.
The issue is summarised as
Specifying CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX in a CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE file has no
effect
which exactly describes the problem you are encountering.
For what it's worth, I also encounter this same problem when trying to cross-compile with CMake v3.5.1 using a toolchain file, so I don't think that the issue has been fixed.
The migrated bug report in CMake's current bug tracker may be found here.
Besides the workaround you have identified involving setting CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX inline in the install command, a more permanent solution might be reached by petitioning the CMake team to fix this bug, by adding your comments to the conversation in the migrated bug report.

Related

How to use find_package in CMake? (Example: GMP library)

I'm trying to use find_package to include libraries in CMake.
This question talks about how to tell CMake to link to the GMP library (external). I am trying to follow the steps of the answer there but do not have any of the <name>Config.cmake or <name>-config.cmake files, as mentioned by some of the comments, which appears to be the default. The answer does not mention any solution for when you don't know how to get/find these files. The comments to that answer link to an old website (external) with a lot of broken links, that describes a list of Load Modules. It's unclear to me where these modules come from and how to get them.
According to the official CMake documentation (external), if the configuration files are not found, find_package falls back from "Module Mode" to "Config Mode". I don't understand what this means and in what cases this would be relevant, especially since the documentation discourages reading about "Config Mode".
The documentation says that
The file is first searched in the CMAKE_MODULE_PATH, then among the Find Modules provided by the CMake installation.
I am still confused about whether these configuration files are supposed to come with CMake or with the library in question and where they are supposed to be located. Probably both are possible but how does one know in a specific case?
Example code, trying to follow modern best practices:
# CMakeLists.txt (not working)
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.2) # I have no idea what version I actually need
project (GMP_demo_project)
# Enable C++17 standard
set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 17)
set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD_REQUIRED ON)
find_package(GMP REQUIRED)
# Create the executable from sources
add_executable(GMP_demo GMP_demo.cpp)
target_link_libraries(GMP_demo gmp gmpxx)
The code outputs an error message along the lines of
CMake Error at CMakeLists.txt:10 (find_package):
By not providing "FindGMP.cmake" in CMAKE_MODULE_PATH this project has
asked CMake to find a package configuration file provided by "GMP", but
CMake did not find one.
Could not find a package configuration file provided by "GMP" with any of
the following names:
GMPConfig.cmake
gmp-config.cmake
Add the installation prefix of "GMP" to CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH or set "GMP_DIR"
to a directory containing one of the above files. If "GMP" provides a
separate development package or SDK, be sure it has been installed.
Question: How does one, in general, obtain and organize these configuration files (CMake Load Modules)? How can one expect another user to have these files on his system? My question is intended to be general and only use GMP as an example (although I am in fact interested in being able to use it).
Just as an aside, I can compile, link and execute my demo code just fine using gcc GMP_demo.cpp -lstdc++ -lgmp after having installed GMP as suggested by the library documentation. The problem is just getting CMake to do it. I can also just give CMake the absolute path of the library, which would of course be much easier but not portable (assuming one can get find_package to actually work and be portable with reasonable amounts of work).
How does one, in general, obtain and organize these configuration files (CMake Load Modules)?
Broadly speaking, there are three buckets these fall into:
Files provided directly by the package. This is the ideal solution, and would be what CMake calls Config mode. There would be a file called GMPConfig.cmake which cmake could find by searching preconfigured paths, or by providing a specific path at configuration time (cmake -DGMP_Dir=/path/to/GMP/install/root). The advantages of this approach are that generation of GMPConfig.cmake is mostly automatic, and the libraries can include things like installation paths and compilation flags. The disadvantage is that the library develops have to actually go to the effort of leveraging modern CMake, and not everybody does this.
Files provided directly by CMake. For common packages (e.g., boost) CMake ships FindXXX.cmake files that search well-known paths and take care of this for you. These work identically to the above from an end-user perspective, but which Find modules are available depends on the version of CMake you have installed.
Files provided by some random person that are copy/pasted into projects. How these works depends on the person who wrote it, so you'll have to read their documentation. Use your favorite search engine and try to find FindGMP.cmake, then drop it in a module folder somewhere and update CMAKE_MODULE_PATH appropriately.
How can one expect another user to have these files on his system?
It's your job to install whatever dependencies a package requires. Anything using modern CMake (bullet 1 listed above) should install the XXXConfig.cmake file as part of its installation. If a library is built by something other than CMake, you'd have to either hope for bullet #2, or find/write your own FindXXX.cmake file (bullet #3).
For your specific case, you might be better off with find_library, since your sample compilation line looks like it just needs to link.

Can you have a common cmake minimum included from another file?

I am quite new to cmake with a makefile background.
I like to use things like include(cmake_utils/header.cmake) to include common snippets of cmake files so that I can include them in my projects but only change them in one once in one place. Where cmake_utils is a git repo.
This is working nicely, but every single CMakeLists.txt I write has to have a cmake_minimum_required.
That is fine, but I may want to change this one day - lets say when one of my common files uses a feature from a newer version of cmake. In that case I don't want to go around changing all the CMakeLists.txt - I just want to change it in one place (ideally).
Here is my current CMakeFile.txt:
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.10.2)
# Include common elements
include(cmake_utils/header.cmake)
include(cmake_utils/cpp_flags.cmake)
# Include path
include_directories(
inc
inc/log4cpp
)
# Include source files by wild card
file(GLOB SOURCES "src/log4cpp/*.cpp")
# Setup output and libs
include(cmake_utils/output_lib_shared.cmake)
include(cmake_utils/common_libs.cmake)
I really want to move the line cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.10.2) into my cmake_utils/header.cmake file.
But when I do this I get the following error right at the end of calling cmake:
CMake Error in CMakeLists.txt:
No cmake_minimum_required command is present. A line of code such as
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.10)
should be added at the top of the file. The version specified may be lower
if you wish to support older CMake versions for this project. For more
information run "cmake --help-policy CMP0000".
Is this just a limitation of cmake that I have to live with, or is there a way to archive this?
It's also possible that I am still thinking like a gnu make writer and I have this all horribly wrong :o
Per the documentation cmake_minimum_required: Call the cmake_minimum_required() command at the beginning of the top-level CMakeLists.txt file even before calling the project() command. It is important to establish version and policy settings before invoking other commands whose behavior they may affect.
There is no way of getting around this.

Best practices with CMake with non-standard include and library directories

I have been trying to build Mozilla RR on a Linux box at work using CMake. We have a slightly eccentric arrangement where shared libraries are stored on network drives in locations like /sw/external/product-name/linux64_g63.dll/. Further, I have built some dependencies for the project in $HOME/sw/. (I am not a sudoer on this box.)
I am rather baffled as how I am supposed to communicate to CMake to look in non-standard directories. So far I have fudged:
PKG_CONFIG_PATH=$HOME/sw/capnproto-0.6.1/lib/pkconfig \
CC=gcc-6.3 CXX=g++-6.3 \
cmake \
-DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$HOME/sw/rr-5.1.0 \
-DPYTHON_EXECUTABLE=$HOME/bin/python2 \
-DCMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH=$HOME/sw/libseccomp-2.2.3/ \
../src/
Which is obviously not a scalable solution, but it does at least complete the configuration successfully and emit some Makefiles.
If I omit -DCMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH=$HOME/sw/libseccomp-2.2.3/, CMake fails, complaining about a missing libseccomp-2.2.3 dependency. But it works if I do have that definition, telling me that CMake understands where the libseccomp-2.2.3 files are and so will properly add the paths to the necessary compiler invocations.
However, make does not succeed, because gcc fails to find a required header file from the libseccomp probject. Examining make VERBOSE=1, I find that CMake hasn't added -I$HOME/sw/libseccomp-2.2.3/include to the gcc invocation.
I feel like this is not the right approach. The other answers I have looked at tell me to modify the CMakeLists.txt file, but surely
that is not going to be scalable across multiple CMake projects, and
for each project, that will need me to maintain a separate CMakeLists.txt file for every platform (Solaris/Linux/Darwin/Cygwin) I build the software on.
Is there a canonical solution to solving this problem? Perhaps a per-site configuration file that will tell CMake how to find libraries and headers, for all projects I build on that site?
Your approach is correct, but cmake is never told to include SECCOMP - see end of this post.
The way cmake can be informed about custom dependency directory depends on how the dependency is searched (i.e. on what is written in CMakeLists.txt).
find_package/find_library/find_path/find_program
If dependency is found with one of above-mentioned commands, custom search directories can be easily added with CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH. There is no need to add full path to include, lib or bin - when package root is added find_-command will check appropriate sub-directories. CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH can be also set with environment variable.
Second option is CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH. Every path added to CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH list treated as separate root directory and is searched before system root directory.
Note that CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH will be ignored by find_-commands with NO_CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH argument.
Following four variables may be used to tune the usage of CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH:
CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH_MODE_PACKAGE
CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH_MODE_INCLUDE
CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH_MODE_LIBRARY
CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH_MODE_PROGRAM
When use of host system default libraries is undesired setting CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH_MODE_INCLUDE and CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH_MODE_LIBRARY to ONLY is a good practice. If dependency library or header is not found in CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH the configuration will fail. If cmake is allowed search system paths too, it is most likely that errors will occur during linking step or even runtime.
See find_package docs for more details.
find_package only
All above applies to find_package command too.
find_package can operate in two modes MODULE and CONFIG.
In MODULE mode cmake uses Find[PackageName].cmake script (module) to find dependent package. CMake comes with large number of modules and custom modules can be added with CMAKE_MODULE_PATH variable. Often find-modules can be informed about custom search paths via environment or cmake variables.
E.g. FindGTest.cmake searches path stored in GTEST_ROOT variable.
If no find module is available, find_package enters CONFIG mode. If a dependency package provides [PackageName]Config.cmake or [LowercasePackageName]-config.cmake cmake can be easily informed about that package with [PackageName]_DIR variable.
Example:
CMakeLists.txt contains:
find_package(Qt5)
FindQt5.cmake is not available, but ~/Qt5/Qt5.8/lib/cmake/Qt5Config.cmake file exists, so add
-DQt5_DIR="${HOME}/Qt5/Qt5.8/lib/cmake"
to cmake call.
pkg-config
CMake can use information provided by external pkg-config tool. It is usually done with pkg_check_modules command. Directory used by pkg-config can be customized with PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable. According to cmake documentation instead of setting PKG_CONFIG_PATH, custom .pc-files directories can be added via CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH. If CMake version is pre-3.1, PKG_CONFIG_USE_CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH have to be set to TRUE(ON) to enable this feature.
Methods of customizing dependencies search path is defined by CMakeLists.txt content. There is no universal solution here.
And now back to missing SECCOMP headers...
In CMakeLists.txt SECCOMP header is found with
find_path(SECCOMP NAMES "linux/seccomp.h")
but I cannot find any command telling CMake to use the found header. For example:
target_include_directories(<target_name> ${SECCOMP})
or globally:
include_directories(${SECCOMP})
I belive that CMakeLists.txt should be fixed. It is not a platform dependent solution.

Is it possible to alter CMAKE_MODULE_PATH from CMake commandline?

Edit: The accepted answer actually shows that it is pretty normally possible to set CMAKE_MODULE_PATH as any other CMake variable e.g. via the -DCMAKE_MODULE_PATH path CLI parameter. It seems that in my case there is some included CMake script that calls set(CMAKE_MODULE_PATH /library_path), which erases all previous paths set to the variable. That's why I couldn't get the variable to do what I wanted it to do. I'll leave the question here in case anybody else faces this kind of situation.
I'm building a (3rd party) project that uses the Protobuf library (but this question is general). My system has a system-wide install of a newer version of Protobuf than the project is compatible with. So I've downloaded and compiled from source an older version of Protobuf.
The project uses CMake, and in its CMakeLists.txt, there is:
find_package(Protobuf REQUIRED)
Which, however, finds the (incompatible) system install. Of course, CMake doesn't know about my custom build of Protobuf. But how do I tell it?
I've created a FindProtobuf.cmake file in, say, ~/usr/share/cmake-3.0/Modules/ and want the build process to use this one for finding Protobuf. But I haven't succeeded forcing CMake to pick up this one and not the system one. I think the reason is quite obvious from the CMake docs of find_package:
The command has two modes by which it searches for packages: “Module” mode and “Config” mode. Module mode is available when the command is invoked with the above reduced signature. CMake searches for a file called Find<package>.cmake in the CMAKE_MODULE_PATH followed by the CMake installation. If the file is found, it is read and processed by CMake. ... If no module is found and the MODULE option is not given the command proceeds to Config mode.
So until I succeed to change CMAKE_MODULE_PATH, CMake will just pick up the FindProtobuf.cmake installed to the default system path and won't ever proceed to the "Config" mode where I could probably make use of CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH.
It's important for me to not edit the CMakeLists.txt since it belongs to a 3rd party project I don't maintain.
What I've tried (all without success):
calling CMAKE_MODULE_PATH=~/usr/share/cmake-3.0/Modules cmake ... (the env. variable is not "transferred" to the CMake variable with the same name)
calling cmake -DCMAKE_MODULE_PATH=~/usr/share/cmake-3.0/Modules ... (doesn't work, probably by design?)
calling Protobuf_DIR=path/to/my/protobuf cmake ... (the project doesn't support this kind of override for Protobuf)
It seems to me that, unfortunately, the only way to alter the CMAKE_MODULE_PATH used by find_package is to alter it from within CMakeLists.txt, which is exactly what I want to avoid.
Do you have any ideas/workarounds on how not to touch the CMakeLists.txt and still convince find_package to find my custom Protobuf?
For reference, the CMake part of this project is on github .
As a direct answer to your question, yes, you can set CMAKE_MODULE_PATH at the command line by running cmake -DCMAKE_MODULE_PATH=/some/path -S /path/to/src -B /path/to/build.
But that probably doesn't do what you want it to do; see below.
The Bitbucket link you supplied is dead, but here are a few suggestions that might help.
Avoid writing your own find modules, especially when the upstream supplies CMake config modules.
You can direct CMake to your custom Protobuf installation by setting one of CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH or Protobuf_ROOT (v3.12+) to the Protobuf install root.
You can tell find_package to try CONFIG mode first by setting CMAKE_FIND_PACKAGE_PREFER_CONFIG to true (v3.15+). Then set Protobuf_DIR to the directory containing ProtobufConfig.cmake.
Failing all else, you can manually set the variables documented in CMake's own FindProtobuf module, here: https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/module/FindProtobuf.html
All these variables can be set at the configure command line with the -D flag.
There are very few environment variables that populate CMake variables to start and I would avoid relying on them. There is an exhaustive list here: https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/manual/cmake-env-variables.7.html. CMAKE_MODULE_PATH is not among them.

CMAKE_SYSROOT in CMakeTestCCompiler

I have a project which builds for PPC, the Toolchain is working correctly, i can build when the sysroot is installed under /opt/poky/1.5. Now i tried to move that Installation to the Project Directory (it is not a part of the Repository there, it is just installed there so it is not reliant on that fix path, so that everyone can check out the project and build it wothout setting up the sysroot under that fixed folder).
To achieve this I set CMAKE_SYSROOT to "${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/poky" where the poky will be installed upon execution of a custom build script (the project also needs to build a secure image, so it is way simpler to use a build script instead of anything else, also this is convenient for jenkins).
Since the CMAKE_SYSROOT is build from the PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR which is different for the CMakeTestCCompiler Project, the cmake call fails teloling me that the CCompiler is broken of course. So I want to know, how I am supposed to get the CMakeTestCCompiler Project to compile with the same CMAKE_SYSROOT variable, without altering the CMakeTestCCompiler Project itself (of course).
Somehow I cannot find an answer anywhere, it seems that noone ever had this issue (which frankly i cannot understand, this should be a common setup in my opinion). (Or maybe i am just too much of a noob when it comes to CMAKE, which i will gladly admit)
I am not interested in solutions like: "JUST INSTALL IT IN A FIX PATH" or such... please, I need the setup like this, I have reasons for that.
THX for reading/trying/answering/helping
Have a nice day
EDIT1:
In CMakeLists.txt (top level CMakeFile so it should be used by any build):
`SET(CMAKE_SYSROOT "${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/poky/sysroots")`
In ToolchainCMake (the one given to the cmake as CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE):
`SET(CMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME Linux)`
`SET(CMAKE_SYSTEM_VERSION 1)`
`SET(CMAKE_SYSROOT "${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/poky/sysroots")`
`SET(COMPILER_ROOT ${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/poky/sysroots/i686-pokysdk-linux/usr/bin/powerpc-poky-linux-gnuspe)`
`SET(CMAKE_C_COMPILER ${COMPILER_ROOT}/powerpc-poky-linux-gnuspe-gcc)`
`SET(CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER ${COMPILER_ROOT}/powerpc-poky-linux-gnuspe-g++)`
`MESSAGE("CMAKE_C_COMPILER: ${CMAKE_C_COMPILER}")`
`MESSAGE("CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER: ${CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER}")`
`MESSAGE("COMPILER_ROOT: ${COMPILER_ROOT}")`
`SET(CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH ${SYS_ROOT}/ppce500v2-poky-linux-gnuspe)`
`SET(CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH_MODE_PROGRAM NEVER)`
`SET(CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH_MODE_LIBRARY ONLY)`
`SET(CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH_MODE_INCLUDE ONLY)`
EDIT2:
I used the
`set(CMAKE_C_COMPILER_WORKS 1 CACHE INTERNAL "")`
`set(CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER_WORKS 1 CACHE INTERNAL "")`
settings to simulate the CMakeTestCCompiler build succeeding and realized that I am facing some additional problems: It seem that the packages are looked up on the system instead of the CMAKE_SYSROOT folder. Even tried the
`SET(CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH ${CMAKE_SYSROOT})`
to try to force the search in there, but without luck. In the CMakeError.log I can see, that the compiler itself was configured with the prefix option that points to /opt/poky/1.5, the path that i want to "overwrite", now I am not sure if the compiler could even deal with an alternate path.
I felt the need to add these information, they not really add to the problem at hand.
ERRORS:
I also found some errors in the above cmake:
`SET(CMAKE_SYSROOT "${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/poky/sysroots")`
must be
`SET(CMAKE_SYSROOT "${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/poky/sysroots/ppce500v2-poky-linux-gnuspe")`
instead and therefor the
`SET(CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH ${SYS_ROOT}/ppce500v2-poky-linux-gnuspe)`
changes to
`SET(CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH ${CMAKE_SYSROOT})`
EDIT: Whole answer changed.
My first suspicion was that the problem is that value of ${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR} is not known in CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE as it is processed before CMakeLists.txt. But this isn't true.
I had similar problem (CMake 2.8.12.2), everything worked OK, when I passed cross compiler by CC environment variable with --sysroot option, i.e. CMake was invoked as follows:
CC="arm-linux-gnueabi-gcc --sysroot=/path/to/sysroot" cmake /path/to/sources
When I switched to using toolchain file, CMake started to report that C compiler doesn't work.
To workaround this problem, I use CMakeForceCompiler package. Parts toolchain file (along with comments) I think are relevant:
include(CMakeForceCompiler)
set(CMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME Linux)
set(CMAKE_SYSTEM_VERSION 1)
# Force compiler - only option that actually works
cmake_force_c_compiler (${TOOLCHAIN_PATH}/bin/arm-linux-gnueabi-gcc GNU)
cmake_force_cxx_compiler(${TOOLCHAIN_PATH}/bin/arm-linux-gnueabi-g++ GNU)
# NOTE: CMAKE_SYSROOT doesn't work as expected
add_definitions("--sysroot=${TOOLCHAIN_SYSROOT}")
set(CMAKE_EXE_LINKER_FLAGS "${CMAKE_EXE_LINKER_FLAGS} --sysroot=${TOOLCHAIN_SYSROOT}" CACHE INTERNAL "" FORCE)
Note, that TOOLCHAIN_PATH and TOOLCHAIN_SYSROOT are my local variables set before.