# Search Functions With Strings and Regexes

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/search-functions-with-strings-and-regexes/9651>\
**Category:** Internals & Design\
**Created:** [March 11, 2018, 10:37pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/search-functions-with-strings-and-regexes/9651 "2018-03-11T22:37:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![iwelch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8c91f0/32.png) [@iwelch](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/iwelch)\
**Post date:** [March 11, 2018, 10:37pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/search-functions-with-strings-and-regexes/9651/1 "2018-03-11T22:37:44Z")

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Not Important.

Some functions, like `search()` work with plain strings or regex strings. Other functions, like `match` and `contains` work only with r, other functions like `startswith` work only with plain.

All the functionality is already there, but would it make sense to make these functions all orthogonal, so that they always work with either type of search string?

I have not fully thought this through. It may create other issues. Nevertheless, it would make it more conveniently easy to remember how to work on strings from an end programmer perspective.

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**Author:** ![nalimilan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/nalimilan/32/147_2.png) [@nalimilan](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/nalimilan)\
**Post date:** [March 12, 2018, 8:42am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/search-functions-with-strings-and-regexes/9651/2 "2018-03-12T08:42:27Z")

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All of these functions have been redesigned deeply in 0.7. See [https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/10593](https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/10593).