A few people (*wink* qwerty, sat, myself) and probably a lot of other people, think it would be convenient if $read's matching switches would be extended with W and R switches, which would perform the same function as they already do with $hfind, with the difference that it would be used on a file now rather than a hash table.

That sounds like a good feature to me. Much easier than looping..

while {
if ($regex(%text,/$read/)) ...
if ($read iswm %text) ...
}

-genius_at_work

Apart from easier, it is a lot more efficient, since it would be like using the file handling commands or /filter (1 time disk access), whereas looping with $read means disk access for each $read call.