[ Kona: LWG reviewed wording; setstate(failbit) changed to setstate(badbit). ]

Proposed resolution:

Change the description in [ios.base.storage] in paragraph 2, and also in paragraph 4, as follows. Replace

If the function fails it sets badbit, which may throw an exception.

with

If the function fails, and *this is a base sub-object of a basic_ios<> object or sub-object, the effect is equivalent to calling basic_ios<>::setstate(badbit) on the derived object (which may throw failure).

The description of ios_base::iword() and pword() in [ios.members.static], say that if they fail, they "set badbit, which may throw an exception". However, ios_base offers no interface to set or to test badbit; those interfaces are defined in basic_ios<>.