[Debian-med-packaging] Bug#962675: can cdbfasta be marked Multi-Arch: foreign?

[Helmut Grohne]

Package: cdbfasta
Version: 0.99-20100722-6
User: debian-cross at lists.debian.org
Usertags: ftcbfs
Control: affects -1 + src:microbiomeutil

microbiomeutil fails to cross build from source, because it fails
running cdbfasta with an "Exec format error". Usually, this indicates
that the relevant package should be marked Multi-Arch: foreign. It is
not entirely clear to me whether doing so is correct. Can you help me
figure out? Please point out what is wrong below.

Reading the cdbfasta manual page, it seems to be a tool for transforming
file formats. Looking into microbiomeutil, it seems that the input
format is textual. Textual file formats usually are
architecture-independent. Then microbiomeutil installs the output files
into an architecture-independent package. If those output files were
architecture-dependent, then microbiomeutil would be wrong in doing so.
This suggests that the marking should be correct. The question really
is: Does the command line interface or input/output format of cdbfasta
or cdbyank depend on the processor architecture it is being run on? If
the answer is "no", please mark it Multi-Arch: foreign. If the answer is
"yes", please close this bug. If the answer is not clear, please get in
touch we me an we can figure out together.

Helmut