Character String Processing Facilities. A multitude of character string/text/natural language processing tools: pattern searching (e.g., with 'Java'-like regular expressions or the 'Unicode' collation algorithm), random string generation, case mapping, string transliteration, concatenation, sorting, padding, wrapping, Unicode normalisation, date-time formatting and parsing, and many more. They are fast, consistent, convenient, and - owing to the use of the 'ICU' (International Components for Unicode) library - portable across all locales and platforms.