String.replace(/re/, replFN) does not count the index position properly for unicode characters

Question

Hello!
In my project, I want to find emoticons in text and append them to a text flow as images. I use regular expression and with English alphabet, all works fine, but when I enter text in other languages, every letter gets counted twice:
var re:RegExp = /:\)/g;
var textEng:String = "Hello, :)";
var textRu:String = "Привет :)";
textEng.replace(re, replFN); // index is 7
textRu.replace(re, replFN); // index is 13
function replFN():String{
  var a:Array = arguments;
  trace(arguments[1]); //The index position in the string where the match begins.
  return arguments[0];
Obviously it's a bug, and the workaround is to use textRu.indexOf(arguments[0]), and keep some lastIndex:int variable when iterating over many matches of the string. But do I need to report it on Jira?
privatevar lastIndex:int = 0;
private function replFN():String{
  var a:Array = arguments;
  var textToAdd:String = textRu.slice(lastIndex,textRu.indexOf(arguments[0]));
  trace(textToAdd);
  lastIndex = textRu.indexOf(arguments[0]) + arguments[0].length;
  trace(arguments[0]);
  return arguments[0];
Thanks.

Answer 1

Dear @kglad
Could you now please match this regex:
var re:RegExp = new RegExp("(http|ftp|https):\/\/[\\w\\-_]+(\\.[\\w\\-_]+)+([\\w\\-\\.,@?^=%&:\/~\\+#]*[\\w\\-\\@?^=%&\/~\\+#])?", "g");
in this string:
"Hello! Photos can be found here: http://flicks.yahoo.com/photo and search is available here: http://yahoo.com/seach.jsp?ref=email&query=welcome%20back"
using your method.
Looking forward to a reply from certified expert.
Best regards.