C++ Converting a time string to seconds from the epoch

Question

I have a string with the following format:

2010-11-04T23:23:01Z

The Z indicates that the time is UTC.
I would rather store t

Answer 1

New answer to an old question. Rationale for new answer: In case you want to use types to solve a problem like this.

In addition to C++11/C++14, you'll need this free, open source date/time library:

#include "tz.h"
#include 
#include 

int
main()
{
    std::istringstream is("2010-11-04T23:23:01Z");
    is.exceptions(std::ios::failbit);
    date::sys_seconds tp;
    date::parse(is, "%FT%TZ", tp);
    std::cout << "seconds from epoch is " << tp.time_since_epoch().count() << "s\n";
}

This program outputs:

seconds from epoch is 1288912981s

If the parse fails in any way, an exception will be thrown. If you would rather not throw exceptions, don't is.exceptions(std::ios::failbit);, but instead check for is.fail().