Convert a date time string with a specified format and timezone to Unix Epoch time stamp

convert_date_to_epoch.py

# timezone solution from: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12165691/python-datetime-with-timezone-to-epoch/17257177#17257177

'''
	Take a timezone in the form of `MM/DD/YYYY HH:MM:SS {AM/PM}` 
	and convert to unix epoch in python3
'''

from datetime import datetime
import pytz


orig = "4/29/2018 11:27:00 PM"

def format_date(dt):
	d = dt.split()[0]
	t = dt.split()[1:]
	MM, DD, YYYY = d.split('/')
	HH, MIN, SS = t[0].split(':')
	if t[1] == 'PM':
		HH = (int(HH) + 12)

	dtobj = datetime(int(YYYY), int(MM), int(DD), int(HH), int(MIN), int(SS))

	return dtobj

def convert_timestamp(dateIN):
    tz = pytz.timezone('US/Eastern')
    dt_to_convert = format_date(dateIN)

    # a datetime with timezone
    dt_with_tz = tz.localize(dt_to_convert, is_dst=None)

    # get timestamp
    ts = (dt_with_tz - datetime(1970, 1, 1, tzinfo=pytz.utc)).total_seconds()
    
    return ts

convert_timestamp(orig)