getting at the actual int4 value of an abstime

i have a table which uses an abstime to store a time/date.

the data originates as unix time_t, which i convert to a string when inserting
the data into the table.

i do select's from the table with WHERE clauses that use the abstime stuff.

i want to get the results of a select as unix time_t, without having to use
the expensive mktime()/strptime() unix C calls.

is there a way to get the int4 value that postgres is storing raw for
abstime?

i'm working in C with libpq.

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