Proposed resolution:

This wording is relative to N3376.

template <class string_traits, class A>
  basic_regex& assign(const basic_string<charT, string_traits, A>& s,
    flag_type f = regex_constants::ECMAScript);

[…]

-15- Effects: Assigns the regular expression contained in the string s, interpreted according the flags specified in f. If an exception is thrown, *this is unchanged.

-16- Postconditions: If no exception is thrown, flags() returns f and mark_count() returns the number of marked sub-expressions within the expression.

[ 2015-05-06 Lenexa: EricWF to write paper addressing 2136 and 2137 ]

[ 2012-10 Portland: Move to Open ]

A favorable resolution clearly depends on a favorable resolution to 2136. There is also a concern that this is just one example of where we would want to apply such a wording clean-up, and which is really needed to resolve both this issue and 2136 is a paper providing the clause 17 wording that gives the guarantee for postcondition paragraphs, and then reviews clauses 18-30 to apply that guarantee consistently. We do not want to pick up these issues piecemeal, as we risk opening many issues in an ongoing process.

The post-conditions of basic_regex<>::assign [re.regex.assign] p16 say:

If no exception is thrown, flags() returns f and mark_count() returns the number of marked sub-expressions within the expression.

The default expectation in the library is that post-conditions only hold, if there is no failure (see also 2136), therefore the initial condition should be removed to prevent any misunderstanding.