makefile auto removing .o files

Question

I am taking a C++ course in college and they want us to manually type in all of the test files... I know, however, that there is a way to do it with out, which is how I ended up with the current(http://pastebin.com/6d9UtKM4) makefile. My question is, why is this makefile automatically removing all the .o files it uses for compiling when it is done? It's not killing me, but I would like to preserve the .o files. I have pasted the makefile here(http://pastebin.com/6d9UtKM4). I have also pasted the current result of running "make tests" here(http://pastebin.com/h3Ny3dib). (Note the part at the bottom of that page that removes all the .o files automatically.)

I would also like to be able to make it generate it like this:

• g++ -o compileDir/assembler.o -c -Wall src/assembler.cpp
• g++ -o compileDir/string.o -c -Wall src/string.cpp
• g++ -c -Wall -o compileDir/test_assignment.o testSrc/test_assignment.cpp
• g++ -o testDir/test_assignment compileDir/test_assignment.o compileDir/string.o compileDir/assembler.o
• g++ -c -Wall -o compileDir/test_bracket.o testSrc/test_bracket.cpp
• g++ -o testDir/test_bracket compileDir/test_bracket.o compileDir/string.o compileDir/assembler.o
• testDir/test_bracket
• testDir/test_assignment

In other words, I want it to compile everything, then run everything. I hope this isn't too much to ask!

Edit: Additional Information: (This is the code that does "make tests")

tests: assembler.o string.o $(test_output) $(test_stringOutput)
        @echo '--- Testing complete ---'

$(testDir)%: $(compileDir)%.o string.o
        g++ -o $@ $< $(compileDir)string.o $(compileDir)assembler.o
        $@
        @echo ''

$(compileDir)%.o: $(testSourceDir)%.cpp
        g++ -c -Wall -o $@ $<

$(compileDir)%.o: $(testStringSrc)%.cpp
        g++ -c -Wall -o $@ $<

EDIT: -----------------------------------------

Resolved via comments:

Adding this line fixed it: .PRECIOUS $(compileDir)%.o

Answer 1

You might add

.PRECIOUS: %.o

which should be implicit, but perhaps you've got a weird setup.