$ perl -Mstrict -Mwarnings -le ' use Time::Piece; my $tp_format = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"; sub get_ms { my ($ts, $ms) = split /,/ => shift; Time::Piece->strptime($ts, $tp_format)->epoch * 1000 + $ms; } my $invoke = "2013-08-09 13:00:23,784"; my $success = "2013-08-09 13:00:23,791"; print "Time diff: ", get_ms($success) - get_ms($invoke), "ms"; ' Time diff: 7ms