convert timestamp to number ?

Hello,

I am processing a query that should return more timestamps, and wouls like
to get them as number...

+----------------------------------+----------------------------------+-------+
|              Field               |              Type                | Length|
+----------------------------------+----------------------------------+-------+
| userid                           | text not null                    |   var |
| uid                              | int4                             |     4 |

...

| dt_modify                        | timestamp                        |     8 |

...

| dt_export                        | timestamp                        |     8 |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------------+-------+

there are more timestamp fields and I wanna load them to C program and
compare them there. (well situation wouldn't be different if it would be
perl program).

I can convert number to timestamp this way:

setup=> update www set dt_export=timestamp(0) where dt_export is not null;
UPDATE 1

setup=> select userid,uid,dt_modify,dt_export from www where dt_export is not NULL;
userid| uid|dt_modify             |dt_export
------+----+----------------------+---------
uhlar |1006|2001-04-18 17:12:59+02|epoch
(1 row)

but I'd like to get those timestamps back in integer format. Is that
possible?

--
 Matus "fantomas" Uhlar, sysadmin at NEXTRA, Slovakia; IRCNET admin of *.sk
 uhlar@fantomas.sk ; http://www.fantomas.sk/ ; http://www.nextra.sk/
 There's a long-standing bug relating to the x86 architecture that
 allows you to install Windows.   -- Matthew D. Fuller