parse-time

With the introduction of the `encode-time', `decode-time', and
`format-time-string' functions, dealing with time became simpler in
Emacs.  However, parsing time strings is still largely a matter of
heuristics and no common interface has been designed.

`parse-time-string' parses a time in a string and returns a list of
values, just like `decode-time', where unspecified elements in the
string are returned as nil (except unspecified DST is returned as -1).
`encode-time' may be applied on these values to obtain an internal
time value.