Why can't Regular Expressions use keywords instead of characters?

Question

Okay, I barely understand RegEx basics, but why couldn\'t they design it to use keywords (like SQL) instead of some cryptic wildcard characters and symbols?

Is it for pe

Answer 1

Because the idea of regular expressions--like many things that originate from UNIX--is that they are terse, favouring brevity over readability. This is actually a good thing. I've ended up writing regular expressions (against my better judgement) that are 15 lines long. If that had a verbose syntax it wouldn't be a regex, it'd be a program.