strtotime() and postgresql date/time output

I have the following problem

I want to save timestamps in a database and use them in a php script.

According to the documentation, postgres's date/time output is possible
in 4 styles. My problem is that the php strtotime() function which I use
to get a timestamp instead of a date/time string does not understand any
of these date/time formats.

- Is it possible to manually define a datestyle so Postgresql returns a
date/time string which  strtotime does understand?
- Is it possible to let Postgresql return just a timestamp instead of a
date/time string
- Is there another function in php which does understand standard ISO or
SQL style date/time strings and converts them to a timestamp?

thanks in advance
--
Rien Broekstra a.k.a Rienzilla
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