builtin regular expressions?

[Roy Smith]

In article <pan.2006.09.30.20.56.40.77304 at gmx.net>,
 Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch <bj_666 at gmx.net> wrote:

> In <efmgtt$q1m$1 at mlucom4.urz.uni-halle.de>, Mirco Wahab wrote:
> 
> > I fail to see the benefit of a re-object, I consider these to
> > be just there because regexes aren't in the core language.
> 
> One benefit is that it's an object.  You can stuff it into a dictionary or
> give it as argument to a function.

More to the point:

You can stick it in a bottle, you can hold it in your hand, AMEN!