Bug#134588: dpkg: --admindir works but as option in dpkg.cfg not

[Giunchedi Filippo <filippo@esaurito.net>]

Package: dpkg
Version: 1.9.19
Severity: normal

if i pass --admindir to dpkg all go ok but if i try to specify it in 
dpkg.cfg it doesn't work and get me a

dpkg: failed to open package info file `/status' for reading: No such
file or directory

here is my dpkg.cfg

#admindir=/home/filippo/prove/dpkg
debug=1
no-debsig

/home/filippo/prove/dpkg is a valid dir (because if i pass from the
commandline it works).
i've also tried admindir='/blah' or admindir="blah", it's the same.
is it a bug or i've missing something?

-- System Information
Debian Release: 3.0
Architecture: i386
Kernel: Linux karamazov 2.4.17 #5 Tue Feb 5 13:09:27 CET 2002 i586
Locale: LANG=en_IE@euro, LC_CTYPE=en_IE@euro

Versions of packages dpkg depends on:
ii  libc6                    2.2.5-3         GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii  libncurses5              5.2.20020112a-3 Shared libraries for terminal hand
ii  libstdc++2.10-glibc2.2   1:2.95.4-2      The GNU stdc++ library