[CMake] Preventing search for libraries in random prefixes

[Mojca Miklavec]

Hi,

In our package manager where it is of crucial importance to link
against the proper library we often end up with hardcoding lots and
lots of options, like:

-DOPENGL_INCLUDE_DIR=${prefix}/include \
-DX11_ICE_INCLUDE_PATH=${prefix}/include \
-DX11_SM_INCLUDE_PATH=${prefix}/include \
-DX11_X11_INCLUDE_PATH=${prefix}/include \
-DX11_Xext_INCLUDE_PATH=${prefix}/include \
-DX11_Xft_INCLUDE_PATH=${prefix}/include \
-DX11_Xpm_INCLUDE_PATH=${prefix}/include \
-DX11_ICE_LIB=${prefix}/lib/libICE.dylib \
-DX11_SM_LIB=${prefix}/lib/libSM.dylib \
-DX11_X11_LIB=${prefix}/lib/libX11.dylib \
-DX11_Xext_LIB=${prefix}/lib/libXext.dylib \
-DX11_Xft_LIB=${prefix}/lib/libXft.dylib \
-DX11_Xpm_LIB=${prefix}/lib/libXpm.dylib \
-DOPENGL_gl_LIBRARY=${prefix}/lib/libGL.dylib \

With autotools that usually boiled down to just:
    --with-x=${prefix}

My question: is there any way to tell CMake the following?

"Please don't search for any libraries or headers from /sw or /usr/X11
or /opt/local or anything, I really really want you to search for the
libraries in /my/special/prefix and only there".

A while back a user asked for removing /sw from CMake Find<Foo>
modules because that caused him problems. But I would like to
understand the general policy about this.

See:
    https://trac.macports.org/ticket/41817

I like that fact that CMake eventually offers more flexibility, but it
makes it a bit painful to ensure that exactly the right libraries are
used. I'm sure that I'm missing something though, so I would like to
understand how to handle this properly.

Thank you,
    Mojca