Qt/C++ regular expression library with unicode property support

Question

I'm converting an application from the .Net framework to Qt using C++. The application makes extensive use of regular expression unicode properties, i.e. \p{L}, \p{M}, etc. I've just discovered that the QRegExp class lacks support for this among other things (lookbehinds, etc.)

Can anyone recommend a C++ regular expression library that:

• Supports unicode properties
• Is unicode-aware in other respects (i.e. \w matches more than ASCII word characters)
• As a bonus, supports lookbehinds.

Please don't point me to the wikipedia article; I don't trust it. That article says that QRegExp supports unicode properties. Unless I'm really doing something wrong, it doesn't. I'm looking for someone actually using unicode properties with a regex library in a project.

Answer 1

http://site.icu-project.org/

ICU is a mature, widely used set of C/C++ and Java libraries providing Unicode and Globalization support for software applications.

• released under a nonrestrictive open source license
• ...
• Regular Expression: ICU's regular expressions fully support Unicode while providing very competitive performance.

It's also compatible to Boost, see their statement in this regard.

Answer 2

There should be nothing stopping you from using PCRE (http://www.pcre.org/), though converting back and forth from QStrings to const char *s could be a pain/performance hit.