title: Parsing date/time strings which are not 'standard' formats
body: <p>How do I parse non-standard date/time strings in Go. In example if I wanted to convert the string <code>10/15/1983</code> into a <code>time.Time</code>? The <code>time.Parse()</code> function supposedly allows you to specify a format.</p>
  
  <p><a href="http://play.golang.org/p/v5DbowXt1x">http://play.golang.org/p/v5DbowXt1x</a></p>
  
  <pre><code>package main
  
  import "fmt"
  import "time"
  
  func main() {
      test, err := time.Parse("10/15/1983", "10/15/1983")
      if err != nil {
          panic(err)
      }
  
      fmt.Println(test)
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>This results in a panic.</p>
  
  <p><code>panic: parsing time "10/15/1983" as "10/15/1983": cannot parse "" as "0/"</code></p>
  
  <p>Logically that makes sense because how is it supposed to know which is the day and which is the month.</p>
  
  <p>Other languages have a function similar to the following:</p>
  
  <p><code>parse("mm/dd/yyyy", "10/15/1983")</code></p>
  
  <p>I cannot find such a function in the Go docs, is my only choice to regex?</p>