python - strtotime equivalent?
Question: I'm using this to convert date time strings to a unix timestamp:

    
    
    str(int(time.mktime(time.strptime(date,"%d %b %Y %H:%M:%S %Z"))))
    

However often the date structure isn't the same so I keep getting the
following error message:

> time data did not match format: data=Tue, 26 May 2009 19:58:20 -0500 fmt=%d
> %b %Y %H:%M:%S %Z

Does anyone know of any simply function to convert a string representation of
a date/time to a unix timestamp in python? I really don't want to have to open
a process to call a php script to echo the timestamp everytime time in a loop
:)


Answer: 
    from dateutil.parser import parse
    
    parse('Tue, 26 May 2009 19:58:20 -0500').strftime('%s')
    
    # returns '1243364300'
    

