Perl-compatible rather than having to also learn emacs-flavor regex

[Hans BKK]

I'm still learning regex (would that ever end?) and prefer to burden my poor 
little brain with only the one flavor.

For filesystems, I've been using sack, a wrapper for ack and ag/silver-searcher 
- and pt on windoze.

For the other places/functions that make use of regex within emacs, I'd like 
pointers to plugins or alternatives that enable the use of PCRE syntax.

Note I plan to use helm or icicles in the future once I get my head (and 
fingers) more wrapped around basic usage, still very much an emacs noob.

BTW I'd also appreciate pointers to integrating the above file-search tool(s) 
(ideally sack) with emacs - so far leaning towards ack-and-a-half to start with 
since that seems the more recently developed.