use strict;
use Time::Local;

my $date = "09/23/2003 14:30";
printf "%s\n", &date_to_unix($date);
printf "%s\n", &get_date(&date_to_unix($date));
exit(0);

sub date_to_unix()
{
    my ($mon,$day,$year,$hour,$min) =
        $_[0] =~ /(\d+)\/(\d+)\/(\d+)\s(\d+):(\d+)/;
    return undef unless ($day and $mon and $year);
    return timelocal(0,$min,$hour,$day,$mon-1,$year-1900);
}

sub get_date()
{
    my $time = shift || time();
    my ($sec, $min, $hour, $day, $mon, $year) = localtime($time);

    # use sprintf to do string formatting for you in one go.
    # %02d will print digit preceeded with 0 if less than 10 and so on...
    return sprintf "%02d/%02d/%04d %02d:%02d",
                   $mon+1, $day, $year+1900, $hour, $min;
}