sub another_converter
{
   my $httpdate = shift;
   my ($mday,$mon,$year,$hours,$min,$sec) = 
        $httpdate =~ m/(\d+)\s+(\w+)\s+(\d+)\s+(\d+):(\d+):(\d+)/;
        
   my $month_num = $month2num{$mon};   
   
   my $thistime = timegm($sec,$min,$hours,$mday,$month_num,$year);
   
   return ($thistime);
}

##</code><code>##

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use Time::Local;

# the prototype for timegm()....
# my $time = timegm($sec,$min,$hours,$mday,$mon,$year);
# mday  is 1...31 max  ->  day in month one based
# mon   is 0..11       ->  month in year zero based !!!!!Wow!!!

my %month2num = ( 'Jan' => 0,
                  'Feb' => 1,
                  'Mar' => 2,
                  'Apr' => 3,
                  'May' => 4,
                  'Jun' => 5,
                  'Jul' => 6,
                  'Aug' => 7,
                  'Sep' => 8,
                  'Oct' => 9,
                  'Nov' => 10,
                  'Dec' => 11, );

my $httpdate = 'Wed, 25 Aug 2010 09:56:38 GMT';
print "httpdate = $httpdate\n";

my ($mday,$mon,$year,$hours,$min,$sec) = 
   $httpdate =~ m/(\d+)\s+(\w+)\s+(\d+)\s+(\d+):(\d+):(\d+)/;
$mon = $month2num{$mon};   
   
print "mday=$mday mon=$mon year=$year hours=$hours min=$min sec=$sec\n";
 #prints: mday=25 mon=7 year=2010 hours=09 min=56 sec=38

my $thistime = timegm($sec,$min,$hours,$mday,$mon,$year);
print "unix time = $thistime\n";

print "\nusing gmtime() to make sure that we can convert back!\n";
print scalar (gmtime ($thistime)),"\n";
print "another way to use gmtime()\n";
print "".gmtime ($thistime),"\n";     #another way to force scalar context

__END__
PRINTS:
httpdate = Wed, 25 Aug 2010 09:56:38 GMT
mday=25 mon=7 year=2010 hours=09 min=56 sec=38
unix time = 1282730198

using gmtime() to make sure that we can convert back!
Wed Aug 25 09:56:38 2010
another say to use gmtime()
Wed Aug 25 09:56:38 2010