how to convert a string to a Unix timestamp in javascript?

You can initialise a Date object and call getTime() to get it in unix form. It comes out in milliseconds so you'll need to divide by 1000 to get it in seconds.

(new Date("2013/09/05 15:34:00").getTime()/1000)

It may have decimal bits so wrapping it in Math.round would clean that.

Math.round(new Date("2013/09/05 15:34:00").getTime()/1000)

try

(new Date("2013-09-05 15:34:00")).getTime() / 1000

DaMouse404 answer works, but instead of using dashes, you will use slashes:

You can initialise a Date object and call getTime() to get it in unix form. It comes out in milliseconds so you'll need to divide by 1000 to get it in seconds.

(new Date("2013/09/05 15:34:00").getTime()/1000)

It may have decimal bits so wrapping it in Math.round would clean that.

Math.round(new Date("2013/09/05 15:34:00").getTime()/1000)

For this you should check out the moment.s-library

Using that you could write something like:

newUnixTimeStamp = moment('2013-09-05 15:34:00', 'YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm:ss').unix();