In most cases, PV‑WAVE IMSL Statistics routines are written so that computations are not affected by underflow, provided the system (hardware or software) replaces an underflow with the value zero. Normally, system error messages indicating underflow can be ignored.

PV‑WAVE IMSL Statistics routines also are written to avoid overflow. A program that produces system error messages indicating overflow should be examined for programming errors such as incorrect input data, mismatch of parameter types, or improper dimensions.

In many cases, the documentation for a function points out common pitfalls that can lead to failure of the algorithm.