“Exec format error” running a binary created by g++

Question

I have a problem with my QTCreator-generated Makefile. Everything is working fine except when I try to create myself a new executable file for my tests, my terminal says: bash: ./RunTests: cannot execute binary file: Exec format error

Here is how my MakeFile rule looks like:

TESTS: ../WannaBeRPG/testes.cpp ../WannaBeRPG/hero.h ../WannaBeRPG/charinterface.h
    $(CXX) -c $(CXXFLAGS) $(INCPATH) -o RunTests ../WannaBeRPG/testes.cpp

Flags are:

CXX = g++
CXXFLAGS = -pipe -g -std=gnu++0x -Wall -W -fPIC $(DEFINES)
INCPATH = -I../WannaBeRPG -I. -I/usr/lib64/qt5/mkspecs/linux-g++
DEFINES = -DQT_QML_DEBUG

If that is anyhow helpful here is my testes.cpp file:

#include <gtest/gtest.h>
#include "hero.h"

TEST(teee, HPTEST)
{
    Hero myHero("Hika",150,100,0,0,0,0,0,0,0);
    EXPECT_EQ(100,myHero.getHP());
}

int main_tests(int argc, char* argv[])
{
    testing::InitGoogleTest(&argc,argv);
    return RUN_ALL_TESTS();
}

I am using Fedora. Any ideas why does this works this way? Primary exec from this Makefile works completely fine.

Answer 1

The -c argument to g++ tells it not to link your binary. Thus, your output file is an object file rather than an executable.