sscanf() question...

I am trying to write a script to convert a MySQL timestamp (YYYYMMDDhhmmss) to a unix timestamp. I wanted to use the following code to do it: list($year,$month,$date,$hour,$minute,$second) = sscanf($mysqltimestamp, %4d%2d%2d%2d%2d%2d); $unixtimestamp = mktime($hour,$minute,$second,$month,$date,$year); Thing is, I'm not sure if sscanf() can take that kind of format. I am getting a parse error on the first line, and I'm not sure why. Can anyone shed some light on this for me please? TIA. -- Uchendu Nwachukwu unndunn AT yahoo DOT com - www.unndunn.com