Icu is a mature, widely used set of c/c++ and java libraries for unicode support, software internationalization and globalization (i18n/g11n). it grew out of the jdk 1.1 internationalization apis, which the icu team contributed, and the project continues to be developed for the most advanced unicode/i18n support. icu is widely portable and gives applications the same results on all platforms and between c/c++ and java software.