#!/usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;
use Date::Parse;

my $line = 'Sep 12 15:07:48 2005 -0500 hostname rest of log entry goes here';

( my $date ) = ( $line =~ /^(\w\w\w \d\d \d\d:\d\d:\d\d \d\d\d\d [-|\+]\d\d\d\d)/ );

print str2time( $date )."\n";