The people who created SNOBOL (the Griswolds) have made some progress
(SNOBOL is *OLD*) and their latest language is called ICON. It has all the
pattern matching facilities, as well as other features that make SNOBOL so
unique. However, ICON has a much more conventional syntax, which makes it
easy for a Basic or Pascal programmer to pick up.
Fortunately, there is a PD implementation (I *think* it's PD, anyway)
for the Amiga, by Gary Sarf and Scott Balantyne (sp?). I believe it should
be available somewhere here (or was it PLink? I'm not sure). I would
STRONGLY recommend that – if you decide to implement a powerful pattern
facility – you should adopt ICON's style, and not SNOBOL's.
It's quite a powerful language; I just started playing with it
recently, and it's impressive. Give it a looksee.