Date::Parse provides two routines for parsing date strings into time values.

str2time(DATE [, ZONE])

str2time parses DATE and returns a unix time value, or undef upon failure.
ZONE, if given, specifies the timezone to assume when parsing if the date
string does not specify a timezome.

strptime(DATE [, ZONE])

strptime takes the same arguments as str2time but returns an array of values
($ss,$mm,$hh,$day,$month,$year,$zone). Elements are only defined if they
could be extracted from the date string. The $zone element is the timezone
offset in seconds from GMT. An empty array is returned upon failure.