text: import calendar
  
  import time
  
  
  def create_time_stamp(date_string, formatting="%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"):
      """
      Sometimes Poloniex will return a date as a string. This converts it to
      a timestamp.
      
      Args:
          date_string: Date string returned by poloniex
          formatting: The default format poloniex returns the date_string in
  
      Returns:
          UNIX timestamp
  
      """
      return calendar.timegm(time.strptime(date_string, formatting))
  