Convert a string date to a timestamp

Question

Is there any simple way to convert a RFC HTTP date into a timestamp in Lua?

\"Sat, 29 Oct 1994 19:43:31 GMT\"

into

783467011

Answer 1

The code below does this except that it does not handle timezones:

s="Sat, 29 Oct 1994 19:43:31 GMT"
p="%a+, (%d+) (%a+) (%d+) (%d+):(%d+):(%d+) (%a+)"
day,month,year,hour,min,sec,tz=s:match(p)
MON={Jan=1,Feb=2,Mar=3,Apr=4,May=5,Jun=6,Jul=7,Aug=8,Sep=9,Oct=10,Nov=11,Dec=12}
month=MON[month]
print(os.time({tz=tz,day=day,month=month,year=year,hour=hour,min=min,sec=sec}))

But it prints 783467011. The code below tells us that 1288374211 is a different date:

print(os.date("%c",1288374211))
--> Fri Oct 29 15:43:31 2010
print(os.date("%c",783467011))
--> Sat Oct 29 19:43:31 1994