Python conversion to epoch time

Hi. I have timestamps that I am trying to convert to epoch time. An example:

[18/Nov/2014:05:19:56 +0000]

I am trying to convert this to an epoch timestamp but have one little glitch. I have this:

import time

date_time = '[18/Nov/2014:05:19:56 +0000]'
pattern = '[%d/%b/%Y:%H:%M:%S +0000]'
epoch = int(time.mktime(time.strptime(date_time, pattern)))
print epoch

As you can see, date_time includes a time zone spec of +0000. This is apparently not recognized. I do get output:

1416313196

However, this does not translate properly into the date I fed the Python script:

$ date -ud @1416313196
Tue Nov 18 12:19:56 UTC 2014

I believe that the Python script is not aware that the time in date_time is UTC. How do I get it to recognize that? Thank you.

Set the TZ environmental variable to "UTC":

TZ=UTC pscript

Otherwise your default timezone is used.