Here's one way from modules I just happened to have lying around on my system (you'll probably need to get Date::Manip from CPAN though)

#!/usr/bin/perl -l

use Date::Manip;

$date = "Wed Feb 18 2004, 11:03:45 AM EST";
print UnixDate(ParseDate($date),"%s");
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I seem to recall that Date::Calc also has a routine to convert from almost any date format to "unix time"

Just cause I can't resist showing one more way to handle this :)

You can use Date::Parse for this as well. The following snippet shows how to go from your string, to a unix timestamp (using Date::Parse::str2time), and back to your string again (using Date::Format::time2str):

perl -MDate::Format -MDate::Parse -e '
  print time2str("%a %h %e %Y, %r %Z", 
        str2time("Wed Feb 18 2004, 11:03:45 AM EST")), $/;'
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- Cees

use Time::Local;
my $epoch_secs=timelocal( $sec, $min, $hrs, $dd, $mm-1, $yy);
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#perl C:\dev\LOOSE\datetime.format.pl

use DateTime::Format::Strptime;

my $Strp = DateTime::Format::Strptime::->new(
    pattern     => '%A %B %d %Y, %r',
    locale      => 'en_US',
    on_error    => 'croak',
);

my $dt = $Strp->parse_datetime(
    'Wed Feb 18 2004, 11:03:45 AM'
);

warn $dt->epoch;

$Strp = DateTime::Format::Strptime::->new(
    pattern     => '%A %B %d %Y, %r %Z',
    locale      => 'en_US',
    on_error    => 'croak',
);

$dt = $Strp->parse_datetime(
    'Wed Feb 18 2004, 11:03:45 AM EST'
);

__END__
1077102225 at C:\dev\LOOSE\datetime.format.pl line 16.
The timezone 'EST' is ambiguous. at C:\dev\LOOSE\datetime.format.pl li
+ne 24
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