Simple string substitution in Makefile

Question

I want to replace the string libswscale.so.2 by libswscale.so (variables called $(SLIBNAME_WITH_MAJOR) and $(SLIBNAME), respectively). This is what I tried in the Makefile:

$(SUBDIR)$(SLIBNAME_WITH_MAJOR): $(OBJS) $(SUBDIR)lib$(NAME).ver
    [...]
    @echo SHFLAGS=$(SHFLAGS)
    @echo SLIBNAME_WITH_MAJOR=$(SLIBNAME_WITH_MAJOR)
    @echo SLIBNAME=$(SLIBNAME)
    @echo A $(patsubst $(SLIBNAME_WITH_MAJOR),$(SLIBNAME),$(SHFLAGS))
    @echo B $(SHFLAGS:$(SLIBNAME_WITH_MAJOR)=$(SLIBNAME))
    @echo C $($(SHFLAGS):$(SLIBNAME_WITH_MAJOR)=$(SLIBNAME))
    @echo D $(SHFLAGS:$(SLIBNAME_WITH_MAJOR)=$(SLIBNAME))
    @echo E $(subst $(SLIBNAME_WITH_MAJOR),$(SLIBNAME),$(SHFLAGS))
    @echo F $(subst l,L,$(SHFLAGS))

The output is

SHFLAGS=-shared -Wl,-soname,libswscale.so.2 -Wl,-Bsymbolic -Wl,--version-script,libswscale/libswscale.ver
SLIBNAME_WITH_MAJOR=libswscale.so.2
SLIBNAME=libswscale.so
A -shared -Wl,-soname,libswscale.so.2 -Wl,-Bsymbolic -Wl,--version-script,libswscale/libswscale.ver
B -shared -Wl,-soname,libswscale.so.2 -Wl,-Bsymbolic -Wl,--version-script,libswscale/libswscale.ver
C
D -shared -Wl,-soname,libswscale.so.2 -Wl,-Bsymbolic -Wl,--version-script,libswscale/libswscale.ver
E -shared -Wl,-soname,libswscale.so.2 -Wl,-Bsymbolic -Wl,--version-script,libswscale/libswscale.ver
F -shared -WL,-soname,libswscale.so.2 -WL,-BsymboLic -WL,--version-script,LibswscaLe/LibswscaLe.ver

The last one (F) is especially ridiculous. What is wrong here? Is it because $(SHFLAGS) is made up of variables as well?

Solution

Found it: $(SHFLAGS) was defined as

SHFLAGS=-shared -Wl,-soname,$$(@F) blablafoo

and using any substitution on it would not work until $$(@F) is actually evaluated (in my case to libswscale.so.2).

I solved it by replacing the variable reference:

@echo $(subst $$(@F),$(SLIBNAME),$(SHFLAGS))

---

Small hint on assignments: VAR = $(OTHERVAR) is evaluated when used, VAR := $(OTHERVAR) is evaluated immediately.