Glob pattern for program path in launch configuration - visual-studio-code

Question

I wonder if there is a way to make a launch configuration with a "pattern" program name?
In my project, I build my program by automatically adding the version at the end of the program name. For example: myprogram-x.x (I work on Ubuntu, so no .exe). So today my launch.json looks like :
"name": "config name",
"type": "cppdbg",
"request": "launch",
"program": "${workspaceFolder}/path/to/build/myprogram-5.3",
"args": [],
"stopAtEntry": false,
"cwd": "${workspaceFolder}/path/to/build/",
"environment": [],
"externalConsole": false,
"MIMode": "gdb",
As I always have only one file of the program in the build directory, I would like to use a pattern. Instead of having to change my launch configuration to match the last version when it change, I would like to use the * or anything else to always match the file no matter the version. Something like:
"name": "config name",
"type": "cppdbg",
"request": "launch",
"program": "${workspaceFolder}/path/to/build/myprogram-*",
"args": [],
"stopAtEntry": false,
"cwd": "${workspaceFolder}/path/to/build/",
"environment": [],
"externalConsole": false,
"MIMode": "gdb",
I did not see anything like that in VS Code tutorial or documentation, although pattern are usable in some other configuration field. I did not see anything related to the program path variable. Is there a way to do something like that?

Answer 1

You can just modify your build process to also create a symlink for development purposes where it doesn't have the version suffix and points to the executable.
Note that CMake has a cross-platform commandline command to create symlinks: create_symlink <old> <new>, and it also has a CMake command to create symlinks at configure time: file(CREATE_LINK).