Ah, I was also thinking of the case where the regex itself is invalid, but it looks like Hive is going to fail here too.

```scala
[marmbrus@michaels-mbp spark (javaSchemaRDD)]$ sbt hive/console
[info] Starting scala interpreter...
[info] 
import org.apache.spark.sql.catalyst.analysis._
import org.apache.spark.sql.catalyst.dsl._
import org.apache.spark.sql.catalyst.errors._
import org.apache.spark.sql.catalyst.expressions._
import org.apache.spark.sql.catalyst.plans.logical._
import org.apache.spark.sql.catalyst.rules._
import org.apache.spark.sql.catalyst.types._
import org.apache.spark.sql.catalyst.util._
import org.apache.spark.sql.execution
import org.apache.spark.sql.hive._
import org.apache.spark.sql.hive.TestHive._
import org.apache.spark.sql.parquet.ParquetTestData
Welcome to Scala version 2.10.3 (Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM, Java 1.7.0_45).
Type in expressions to have them evaluated.
Type :help for more information.

scala> TestHive.runSqlHive("SELECT 'a' RLIKE '**' FROM src LIMIT 1")

======================
HIVE FAILURE OUTPUT
======================
set javax.jdo.option.ConnectionURL=jdbc:derby:;databaseName=/private/var/folders/36/cjkbrr953xg2p_krwrmn8h_r0000gn/T/sparkHiveMetastore5920310799452446901;create=true
set hive.metastore.warehouse.dir=/private/var/folders/36/cjkbrr953xg2p_krwrmn8h_r0000gn/T/sparkHiveWarehouse505596429372573669
OK
Copying data from file:/Users/marmbrus/workspace/hive/data/files/kv1.txt
Copying file: file:/Users/marmbrus/workspace/hive/data/files/kv1.txt
Loading data to table default.src
Table default.src stats: [num_partitions: 0, num_files: 1, num_rows: 0, total_size: 5812, raw_data_size: 0]
OK
FAILED: ParseException line 1:0 cannot recognize input near 'test' '<EOF>' '<EOF>'

FAILED: SemanticException [Error 10014]: Line 1:7 Wrong arguments ''**'': org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.metadata.HiveException: Unable to execute method public org.apache.hadoop.io.BooleanWritable org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.udf.UDFRegExp.evaluate(org.apache.hadoop.io.Text,org.apache.hadoop.io.Text)  on object org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.udf.UDFRegExp@37348663 of class org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.udf.UDFRegExp with arguments {a:org.apache.hadoop.io.Text, **:org.apache.hadoop.io.Text} of size 2

======================
END HIVE FAILURE OUTPUT
======================
```