How to convert full date/time to timestamp?

What function in Python and PHP can convert time in specified time zone to Unix timestamp?

• I have a lot of times in various time zones to process, but the mktime() function in both PHP and Python have no parameters about time zone, it just convert to timestamps in my system time zone. Is there any function accept a argument such as +32400 or -32400 for UTC+9?

• Answer:

  In both of those libraries, there is a way to set the time zone used for mktime(). In PHP, it is date_default_timezone_set(). (http://us3.php.net/manual/en/function.date-default-timezone-set.php) In Python, it is setting the "TZ" environmental variable and then calling time.tzset(). (http://docs.python.org/library/time.html#time.tzset) There are other Python solutions, such as using the datetime library, or using the email.utils.mktime_tz() funciton. It might be easier, however, to simply add/subtract the proper number of seconds to adjust after you have already converted in UTC.