Where does "dpkg -l" reads package info?

["Yildiz, Murat" <murat.yildiz@atosorigin.com>]

Hi,
where does "dpkg -l" or deselect|select reads package info?
/var/lib/dpkg/available or status? or both?
I tried to delete these two files and run apt-setup and let read all 8 cd's
but it seems it doesn't write available and status files again.
What to do when these two files are corrupt? (woody 3.0 stable)


Murat