How to use std::regex?

Question

I'm using C++ Primer 5th to learn C++. The code below is copied from P729.

#include <iostream>
#include <regex>
#include <string>

int main()
{
    // find the characters ei that follow a character other than c
    std::string pattern("[^c]ei");
    pattern = "[[:alpha:]]*" + pattern + "[[:alpha:]]*";
    std::regex r(pattern);
//  ~~~~~~~~~~~^~~~~~~~~~~ where the exception was thrown.
    std::smatch results;

    std::string test_str = "receipt freind theif receive";
    if (regex_search(test_str, results, r))
        std::cout << results.str() << std::endl;

    return 0;
}

When running it, an exception was thrown :

terminate called after throwing an instance of 'std::regex_error'
  what():  regex_error
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By debugging step by step, I found it was thrown while constructing the object r from the code from bits/regex_compiler.h:

  template<typename _InIter, typename _TraitsT>
    bool
    _Compiler<_InIter, _TraitsT>::
    _M_bracket_expression()
    {
      if (_M_match_token(_ScannerT::_S_token_bracket_begin))
    {
      _RMatcherT __matcher(_M_match_token(_ScannerT::_S_token_line_begin),
                   _M_traits);
      if (!_M_bracket_list(__matcher)
          || !_M_match_token(_ScannerT::_S_token_bracket_end))

        __throw_regex_error(regex_constants::error_brack);
     // ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
      _M_stack.push(_StateSeq(_M_state_store,
                  _M_state_store._M_insert_matcher(__matcher)));
      return true;
    }
      return false;
    }

OK.The code above is totally beyond what I can understand.That's what I have tried so far.Can anyone tell me what's gong on here? How to fix it?

UPDATE: The compiler I'm using:

gcc version 4.8.1 (Ubuntu 4.8.1-2ubuntu1~13.04)

Answer 1

You need to use minimal version of g++ 4.9 to use regex properly.(You can compile it with lower versions, but it's broken)

You can download g++ 4.9 from their side. GCC SITE
After that try:
g++49 -std=c++0x -static-libstdc++.

I try to search more about it for you.

EDIT: g++49, because of the reason, that version 4.9 can't be default after building it.