ASCII-->internal time

[Mark Lawrence]

    I've recently been considering what to use for an internal format
    for date/time stamps.  The system I'm am developing receives
    date/time stamped records from an external source.  The stamp is in
    a consistent ascii format.  
    
    I've been reviewing ctime, et al and note that they are good for 
    converting UNIX internal time format into ascii and struct tm but 
    don't provide a way to convert from ascii or struct tm back to UNIX 
    internal format.  I don't see a cousin which has that functionality
    in the man pages, either.  Am I missing something here?  I'd like to
    be able to pick apart the stamp on the data, plug it into a variable
    of type struct tm and then have it womped into UNIX internal format
    (for storage efficiency).  

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