Here's how you would do it in Python: 
from datetime import datetime
date_format = '%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Y'
beginning = datetime.strptime('Thu Oct 24 17:37:58 2007', date_format)
end = datetime.strptime('Fri Oct 26 06:54:09 2007', date_format)
diff = beginning - end
print 'Difference in seconds:', diff.seconds

[download]
I'm not sure how to do it in Perl, I checked the Date::Manip CPAN module but it doesn't have a way to set the format that it uses to parse dates. You could use a regular-expression to parse it out and then convert it to a format recognized by the ParseDate function in Date::Manip

Edit: Thanks a lot to the jerks who down-modded me. I thought Perl was about There's More Than One Way To Do It?

In reply to Re: Finding time difference from two strings by omouse
in thread Finding time difference from two strings by Anonymous Monk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.