title: JavaScript convert human readable date to unix timestamp and back again
body: <p>I am working on an app, that I figure the best way to pass dates and times around is to use a unix timestamp as in the end of the whole process I have going on it makes an ajax call to PHP that passes these times to be used in mysql its easier to convert the timestamp to datetime format overall.</p>
  
  <p>Currently I am being passed a date like <code>9/9/12 1:00 PM</code> this is a date I have no control over the initial formatting. What I need to do is take this date/time format and convert it into a unix timestamp so I can work with it server side later when I pass it to a server with PHP on it. Ive been looking for a while now and I can't seem to find an answer for this, more so one that involves taking a specific time/date and passing that to something javascript side and converting it to a unix timestamp</p>