`match-data' set improperly

[Luc Teirlinck]

Matthew Swift wrote:

    The documentation (TeXinfo and docstrings) is pretty clear that
    (match-string N) when submatch N>0 does not match anything is nil,
    and = it is also clear that (match-string 0) is like the case for
    N>0 but referring = to the entire match instead of a submatch.
    There is no suggestion that match-data is ever undefined, once one
    match has been done,

The following in the Elisp manual (Chapter: Searching and Matching, Simple
Match Data Access) suggests exactly that to me:

       A search which fails may or may not alter the match data.  In the
    past, a failing search did not do this, but we may change it in the
    future.

Sincerely,

Luc.