[SunRescue] Dummy alert --- what exactly is sol8 pkgadd looking for?

[User Bobkeys BSD Bob the old greybeard BSD freak]

Dummy alert.....(:+{{...

I am trying to add in packages, e.g., gcc, for starters, onto a relatively
stock sol8 install in my SS5.  Unfortunately, pkgadd can't seem to find
anything to dine on, to its liking.  What exactly is it looking for?
Say I have a tarball, gcc.tgz, that is the mystical gcc package from
whereversunarchivesare.org.  I put it in /export/home/work.  The manpage
would suggest that pkgadd -d /pathtofile should work.  It doesn't on
the tgz file, or the tar file, or the unrolled tarball.  So, how does
pkgadd expect its fresh meal of gcc to be setup/unrolled/cooked, etc?

The error it returns is:

pkgadd: ERROR: now packages were found in <pathtopackagestuff>

Thanks

Bob