It seems like I read some discussion about this before.

Why don't we put the md5 and patch-sum files into a package source pkg/
directory instead of the files/ directory?

Then the files directory won't exist (unless really needed).

I have a simple patch below (which also adds one comment).
And I did a couple tests and it seems to work, such as:
 make makesum
 make patchsum
 make


--- pkgsrc/mk/bsd.pkg.mk.orig	Thu Mar 15 12:53:38 2001
+++ pkgsrc/mk/bsd.pkg.mk	Thu Mar 15 13:10:15 2001
@@ -270,8 +270,8 @@
 # Miscellaneous overridable commands:
 SHCOMMENT?=		${ECHO_MSG} >/dev/null '***'
 
-DIGEST_FILE?=		${FILESDIR}/md5
-PATCH_SUM_FILE?=	${FILESDIR}/patch-sum
+DIGEST_FILE?=		${PKGDIR}/md5
+PATCH_SUM_FILE?=	${PKGDIR}/patch-sum
 
 .if exists(/usr/bin/m4)
 M4?=			/usr/bin/m4
@@ -1512,6 +1512,7 @@
 			if [ "X$$fail" != "X" ]; then			\
 				${ECHO_MSG} "Patching failed due to modified patch file(s): $$fail"; \
 				exit 1;					\
+			else ${ECHO_MSG} "===> Checksum OK for patches";	\
 			fi;						\
 		fi;							\
 	fi
@@ -2445,7 +2446,7 @@
 
 .if !target(makesum)
 makesum: fetch uptodate-digest
-	${_PKG_SILENT}${_PKG_DEBUG}${MKDIR} ${FILESDIR}
+	${_PKG_SILENT}${_PKG_DEBUG}${MKDIR} ${PKGDIR}
 	${_PKG_SILENT}${_PKG_DEBUG}if [ -f ${DIGEST_FILE} ]; then ${RM} -f ${DIGEST_FILE}; fi
 	@${ECHO} -n "$$" > ${DIGEST_FILE};				\
 		${ECHO} -n "NetBSD" >> ${DIGEST_FILE}; 			\
@@ -2466,7 +2467,7 @@
 .if !target(makepatchsum)
 makepatchsum mps: uptodate-digest
 	${_PKG_SILENT}${_PKG_DEBUG}					\
-	(${MKDIR} ${FILESDIR};						\
+	(${MKDIR} ${PKGDIR};						\
 	${ECHO_MSG} "${_PKGSRC_IN}> Making patch checksums";		\
 	if [ -f "${PATCH_SUM_FILE}" ]; then				\
 		${AWK} -- '{print ; exit}' < ${PATCH_SUM_FILE} > ${PATCH_SUM_FILE}.new; \


   Jeremy C. Reed
   http://www.reedmedia.net/