qmake replace function not working

[Bart_Vandewoestyne]

In order to avoid code duplication in one of my .pro files, I have created the following qmake replace function called copyAndModify:

defineReplace(copyAndModify) {

    srcFile = $$1
    dstFile = $$2

    QMAKE_POST_LINK += $$sprintf($$QMAKE_CHK_EXISTS, $$shell_path($${dstFile})) \
                         $$QMAKE_COPY $$shell_path($${srcFile}) $$shell_path($${dstFile})$$escape_expand(\n\t)
    QMAKE_POST_LINK += $$QMAKE_QMAKE -install sed -e 's/foo//g' \
                                                  -e 's/bar//g' \
                                                  -e 's/baz//g' $$shell_path($${dstFile}) > $$shell_path($${dstFile}.tmp)$$escape_expand(\n\t)
    QMAKE_POST_LINK += $$QMAKE_MOVE $$shell_path($${dstFile}.tmp) $$shell_path($${dstFile})$$escape_expand(\n\t)
    return()
}

What it basically does is:

1. Copy a config file to a destination file (if it does not exist yet).
2. Do some textual replacements using qmake's sed implementation. Because that sed implementation cannot do in-file replacements (-i option) I am first redirecting output to a .tmp file, and then move the .tmp file to the destination file.

I call this function in the same .pro file as follows:

SRC_FILE = $${PWD}/doc/config/foobar.conf
DST_FILE = $${CONFIG_DIR}/foobar.conf
$$copyAndModify($${SRC_FILE}, $${DST_FILE})

but for some reason, the QMAKE_POST_LINK commands are not added to my PostBuildEvents in my Visual Studio 2019 project. It also doesn't work if I pass the arguments as follows:

$$copyAndModify(SRC_FILE, DST_FILE)

What am I doing wrong?