<pre><code>&gt;&gt;&gt; import time
&gt;&gt;&gt; time.strptime("01-31-2009", "%m-%d-%Y")
(2009, 1, 31, 0, 0, 0, 5, 31, -1)
&gt;&gt;&gt; time.mktime((2009, 1, 31, 0, 0, 0, 5, 31, -1))
1233378000.0
&gt;&gt;&gt; 60*60*24 # seconds in a day
86400
&gt;&gt;&gt; 1233378000.0 / 86400
14275.208333333334
</code></pre>

<p><code>time.mktime</code> should return the number of seconds since the epoch. Since I'm giving it a time at midnight and the epoch is at midnight, shouldn't the result be evenly divisible by the number of seconds in a day?</p>

```
```
mktime(...)
    mktime(tuple) -> floating point number

    Convert a time tuple in local time to seconds since the Epoch.
```
```
local time... fancy that.
The time tuple:
```
```
The other representation is a tuple of 9 integers giving local time.
The tuple items are:
  year (four digits, e.g. 1998)
  month (1-12)
  day (1-31)
  hours (0-23)
  minutes (0-59)
  seconds (0-59)
  weekday (0-6, Monday is 0)
  Julian day (day in the year, 1-366)
  DST (Daylight Savings Time) flag (-1, 0 or 1)
If the DST flag is 0, the time is given in the regular time zone;
if it is 1, the time is given in the DST time zone;
if it is -1, mktime() should guess based on the date and time.
```
```
Incidentally, we seem to be 6 hours apart:
```
```
>>> time.mktime((2009, 1, 31, 0, 0, 0, 5, 31, -1))
1233356400.0
>>> (1233378000.0 - 1233356400)/(60*60)
6.0
```
```