> Something just struck me as odd wrt PKG_TMPDIR.  From the pkg_* man pages:
> 
>      PKG_TMPDIR, TMPDIR
>             These are tried in turn (if set) as candidate directories in
>             which to create a ``staging area'' for any files extracted by
>             pkg_info from package files.  If neither PKG_TMPDIR nor TMPDIR
>             yields a suitable scratch directory, /var/tmp, /tmp, and
>             /usr/tmp are tried in turn.  Note that /usr/tmp may be creat-
>             ed, if it doesn't already exist.
> 
> Why would we prefer /var/tmp over /tmp for files that are unusable across a
> reboot?  If the process is interrupted by a reboot, you can't `recover' as
> with ex/vi....

Because the staging area often needs huge amounts of space.