Google is missing one great feature - regular expressions

There seems to be one great feature missing in Google search - REGEXPs

[turbofart]

... am I the only person missing the ability to perform searches by typing regular expressions in the search box?

Is performance the only issue why Google does not allow regexps to be used on regular basis?

[tedster]

I don't think the present day relevance algorithms would accommodate themselves to regex, which pretty much would be focused on text-string matching, and that's not Google.

[Adversity Sure Fire]

I did not understand "regexps". can you tell me what is this

[wheelie34]

regexps = regular expressions

[karamkshetra]

Can you please tell the importance of Regular Expressions...

What I got from Google Analytics is:

Posix regular expressions are used to match or capture portions of a field using wildcards and metacharacters. They are often used for text manipulation tasks. Most of the filters included in Google Analytics use these expressions to match the data and perform an action when a match is achieved. For instance, an exclude filter is designed to exclude the hit if the regular expression in the filter matches the data contained in the field specified by the filter.

Regular expressions are text strings that contain characters, numbers, and wildcards.

AND....

Tips for Regular Expressions

1. Make the regular expression as simple as possible. Complex expressions take longer to process or match than simple expressions.
2. Avoid the use of .* if possible since this expression matches everything and may slow down processing the expression. For instance, if you need to match index.html, use index\.html, not .*index\.html.*
3. Try to group patterns together when possible. For instance, if you wish to match a file suffix or .gif, .jpg, and .png, use \.(gif¦jpg¦png) instead of \.gif¦\.jpg¦\.png.
4. Be sure to escape the regular expression wildcards or metacharacters if you wish to match those literal characters.
5. Use anchors whenever possible. The anchor characters are ^ and $, which match either the beginning or end of an expression, respectively. Using these when possible will speed up processing. For instance, to match abc directory in /abc/xyz, use ^/abc/ instead of /abc/. Using the ^ will force the expression to match at the beginning and will improve processing speed.

Is this what you guys are talking about.

[DamonHD]

Google does support regexs in codesearch.

Rgds

Damon

[mattg3]

Is performance the only issue why Google does not allow regexps to be used on regular basis?

The majority of ad clicking easy following users would think that's a laxative ... the market on the main serps is in the non geeks, hence it's in the code search.