How to convert python timestamp string to epoch?

Question

I have the following string:

mytime = \"2009-03-08T00:27:31.807Z\"

How do I convert it to epoch in python?

I tried:

Answer 1

dateutil is the only library i have found that correctly deals with the timezone offset identitifier (Z)

pip install python-dateutil

then

from dateutil.parser import parse as date_parse
print date_parse("2009-03-08T00:27:31.807Z")
#get timestamp

import calendar
dt =  date_parse("2009-03-08T00:27:31.807Z")
timestamp1 = calendar.timegm(dt.timetuple())