APT needs /var/lib/dpkg/

[Markus Kolb <debian@tower-net.de>]

Hi,

I want to use APT (apt-get and apt-cache) for some repository games as a 
backend-tool. Of course as non-root user.
Is there a possibility to tell apt-get and apt-cache to not look for 
status-file and lock-file in /var/lib/dpkg/ instead in some other 
directory? Or is that path hardcoded and I must recompile apt with 
changed source?

Thx
Markus