Can't use dpkg (and thus apt-get et al.)

[David R. Litwin]

Trying to upgrade in synaptic gives

dpkg: parse error, in file `/var/lib/dpkg/available' near line 359695 package `dcgui':
 field name `
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (2)

Looking at the said file, at around the line mentioned, the normal text becomes corrupted: It is a lot of boxes, numbers and letters with neither pattern nor order.

I looked at the folder mentioned: There is available and abailable.old. The latter is uncorreupted. But, it is a binary file, so I did not wish to alter it.

How should I proceed?

Sid, 2.6.15-686-smp Toshiba laptop P4 H-T KDE 3.5.

Thanks much.

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