--- /dev/null	Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000
+++ b/python/parse_date.py	Thu Oct 23 14:08:17 2014 -0700
@@ -0,0 +1,81 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python
+# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
+
+"""
+parse date
+"""
+
+# imports
+import argparse
+import calendar
+import datetime
+import sys
+import time
+from .formatting import format_table
+from dateutil.parser import parse
+
+
+__all__ = ['main', 'parse_date', 'epoch2local', 'epoch2utc', 'is_dst', 'timezone']
+
+
+def is_dst(localtime=None):
+    """returns if daylight savings time is in effect locally"""
+    return time.localtime(localtime).tm_isdst > 0
+
+
+def timezone(localtime=None):
+    """returns name of local timezone"""
+    return time.tzname[int(is_dst(localtime))]
+
+
+def epoch2local(datestamp):
+    """convert epoch to local time"""
+    return datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(float(datestamp))
+
+
+def epoch2utc(datestamp):
+    """convert epoch to UTC"""
+    return datetime.datetime.utcfromtimestamp(float(datestamp))
+
+
+def parse_date(datestamp, utc=False):
+    """returns seconds since epoch from the supplied date"""
+
+    try:
+        # already epoch timestamp
+        return float(datestamp)
+    except ValueError:
+        pass
+
+    # parse the string
+    parsed_date = parse(datestamp)
+
+    # convert this to seconds since epoch
+    if utc:
+        return float(calendar.timegm(parsed_date.timetuple()))
+    else:
+        return time.mktime(parsed_date.timetuple())
+
+
+def main(args=sys.argv[1:]):
+
+    # parse command line
+    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description=__doc__)
+    parser.add_argument('date', nargs='+',
+                        help="local date to parse")
+    parser.add_argument('--utc', dest='utc',
+                        action='store_true', default=False,
+                        help="indicate date is in UTC")
+    options = parser.parse_args(args)
+
+    # parse each date
+    epochs = [parse_date(d, options.utc) for d in options.date]
+
+    # display results
+    header = ['epoch', 'local', 'UTC']
+    print (format_table([[d, '{} {}'.format(epoch2local(d), timezone(d)), epoch2utc(d)] for d in epochs],
+                        header=header, joiner='|'))
+
+
+if __name__ == '__main__':
+    main()