Python shlex alternative for C / C ++

Question

The simple question is, is there something like a python shlex package that would allow me to simply parse / split / quote / output lines like cascades / backslashed in C or (possibly) C ++?

The shlex package is just great for its purpose (it gives an easy delivery for minilanguages, etc.), with a similar general processing tool in C would be nice.

Link to shlex docs: http://docs.python.org/3.4/library/shlex.html

An example of what shlex does:

>>> import shlex
>>> shlex.split('abc ab\\ c  "ab\\"cd" key="\\"val\\""')
['abc', 'ab c', 'ab"cd', 'key="val"']