<dt><code><var>logfile</var></code></dt>
-<dd>The path plus basename of the logfile. If <var>logfile</var>
+<dd><p>The path plus basename of the logfile. If <var>logfile</var>
includes any '%' characters, it is treated as a format string for
<code>strftime(3)</code>. Otherwise, the suffix
<var>.nnnnnnnnnn</var> is automatically added and is the time in
the current period. For example, if a rotation time of 86400 is
specified, the hour, minute, and second fields created from the
<code>strftime(3)</code> format will all be zero, referring to the
-beginning of the current 24-hour period (midnight).</dd>
+beginning of the current 24-hour period (midnight).</p>
+<p>When using <code>strftime(3)</code> filename formatting,
+be sure the log file format has enough granularity to produce
+a different file name each time the logs are rotated. Otherwise
+rotation will overwrite the same file instead of starting a new
+one. For example, if <var>logfile</var> was
+<code>/var/logs/errorlog.%Y-%m-%d</code> with log rotation at 5
+megabytes, but 5 megabytes was reached twice in the same day, the
+same log file name would be produced and log rotation would keep
+writing to the same file.</p>
+</dd>
<dt><code><var>rotationtime</var></code></dt>