Log files wouldn’t fall under the banner of compiled languages or ASTs, so I’m not sure how that example applies.

And I’m aware that it can lead to O(n²) complexity but, as others have provided, there are already tools that do this, so it is within the capabilities of modern processors

Yes there will be cases where the size of the search space will make it prohibitive to run in reasonable times but this is - by merit of the existing tools and the fact that they seem to work quite well - an edge case.