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I'd (probably) consider building and searching an index of ASTs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_syntax_tree).

Not only would it allow searching with regexp, but it could allow more sophisticated search queries like "Search all my Ruby code for blocks that rescue StandardError and are not followed by an ensure clause"

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But you'd have to do that separately for every language.

Edit: the OP is such a great question. I've been saving up the joke of commenting "How is this Hacker News?" on the most literally appropriate HN post I run across... and almost used it on this one. Sadly, I probably never will.

> But you'd have to do that separately for every language.

That's correct. It's one of the challenging parts.

It's one of those ideas that would be best tried out on one instance first. It's not obvious that the ASTs of programs in different languages would be "A" enough for a generalized querying system to be useful. Still, I don't mean to shoot the idea down - it would make for an interesting experiment.

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