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convert a string to date object javascript returns an incorrect date

I am trying to convert string to a date object in javascript, however what i day that is minus 1 from day in string. I don't know what is wrong. Here is the method
function formatDate(date_str)
{
console.log(date_str); //input : 2020-03-11
let new_date = new Date(date_str);
console.log(new_date); //output : Tue Mar 10 2020 20:00:00 GMT-0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)
return new_date;
}

The most likely explanation is that parsing the input string "2020-03-11" with no other information equates it to a date of March 11, 2020 at midnight UTC. When you are in a different time zone, then it calculates your time zone offset and gives you a time four hours earlier which would be the day before in local time.

Why such behavior:
The date string(2020-03-11) did not specify any time zone, when you attempt to create a Date object with this string, JavaScript would assume the time zone to be UTC so the date is internally dealt with like as: 2020-03-11T00:00:00Z.
console.log(new_date) would internally call .toString() method on the new_date object and doing that would trigger a date conversion to your local time zone. From the question I believe you(the time on your machine actually) are in GMT-4, this is why 4 hrs is being subtracted from the output of the logs. More details about the date conversion due to time zone here
Possible Fix:
Firstly, we should understand that this is not a bug or an error, it is just how the JavaScript Date object works.
For the scenario described in your question, I'm guessing what you want is to avoid this time zone conversion on the date string. What you can do is add timezone information to the date string before using it to instantiate a date object, with this, javascript wouldn't assume that the date string you are passing into the Date() constructor is in UTC, and when you call Date.toString() or any other similar methods, there won't be any surprises. An implementation for this can be something like this:
// Sorry for the super long function name :)
function add_local_time_zone_to_date_string (date_string) {
// Getting your local time zone
let local_time_zone = (new Date().getTimezoneOffset() * -1) / 60;
// local_time_zone is a number, convert it to a string
local_time_zone = (local_time_zone.toString())
// Padding with 0s if needed to ensure it is of length 2
local_time_zone = local_time_zone.padStart(2, '0');
return `${date_string}T00:00:00+${local_time_zone}`
}
function formatDate(date_str) {
console.log(date_str); //input : 2020-03-11
const date_with_time_zone = add_local_time_zone_to_date_string(date_str);
let new_date = new Date(date_with_time_zone);
console.log(new_date); //output : There should be no surprises here
return new_date;
}

Javascript convert time to epoch format

I have a date sting that looks like this 2016-02-21T02:14:39.000000
would like to convert it to Epoch time using Javascript if possible

Try
var ts = "2016-02-21T02:14:39.000000";
var unix_seconds = ((new Date(ts)).getTime()) /1000;
console.log(unix_seconds);
getTime returns milliseconds, so divide by 1000 to get seconds
https://jsfiddle.net/tbxac0de/

Presumably by "convert it to Epoch time" you mean a number of seconds or milliseconds since the common UNIX and ECMAScript epoch. The time value can be found by converting the string to a Date and getting its internal time value.
By far the best way to convert a string to a Date is to manually parse it. A library can help, but a function isn't difficult to write. E.g. to parse "2016-02-21T02:14:39.000000" as a local date (i.e. ISO 8601 format without a time zone), use something like:
// Parse y-m-dTh:m:s as local date and time
// since there is no timezone
function parseIsoLocal(s) {
var b = s.split(/\D/);
return new Date(b[0],b[1]-1,b[2],b[3],b[4],b[5],
((b[6]||'')+'000').slice(0,3));
}
// Convert string to Date
var d = parseIsoLocal('2016-02-21T02:14:39.000000');
// Show date and milliseconds since epoch
document.write(d + '<br>' + +d);
The above can easily be extended to treat the string as UTC, incorporate time zones and validate the input, but that doesn't seem to be required in this case.
Note that most browsers will parse the format in the OP, however some in use will not and, of those that will, some treat it as local and some as UTC. According to ISO 8601, it should be treated as local so that's what I've done.

Invalid Date in Javascript Date

I use an external API to get some data. Then I do some calculations in Javascript with those data. One field is date in this format: 2015-01-26 18:28:14
Then I have to parse this date. I tried with:
var last = "2015-01-26 18:28:14"
var login = new Date(last).getTime();
But I have an error of Invalid Date. I also tried:
var last = "2015-01-26 18:28:14"
var login = Date.parse(last);

You could try insert the character T between the date and the time.
ECMAScript 5 adds support for ISO-8601 dates and times. ISO-8601 stipulates that timestamps with both date and time should be written 2015-01-26T18:28:14.
Note that parse returns:
the number of milliseconds since January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 UTC
See Date.parse() for more info.

Running your code caused errors for me in firefox too
formatting the date like this resolved the issue
"2015/01/26 00:00:00"
var last = "2015/01/26 18:28:14"
var login = new Date(last).getTime();
if you date is coming back with the '-' you can simply do a replace
var d = "2015-01-26 18:28:14";
var login = new Date(d.replace('-', '/')).getTime();

Using momentjs to convert date to epoch then back to date

I'm trying to convert a date string to epoch, then epoch back to the date string to verify that I'm providing the correct date string.
var epoch = moment("10/15/2014 9:00").unix(); // do I need to do .local()?
var momentDate = moment(epoch); // I've also tried moment.utc(epoch)
var momentDateStr = momentDate.calendar();
alert("Values are: epoch = " + epoch + ", momentDateStr = " + momentDateStr);
Renders
Values are: epoch = 1413378000, momentDateStr = 01/17/1970
Note: I'm using the following version of the moment js script, //cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/moment.js/2.8.3/moment-with-locales.js

There are a few things wrong here:
First, terminology. "Epoch" refers to the starting point of something. The "Unix Epoch" is Midnight, January 1st 1970 UTC. You can't convert an arbitrary "date string to epoch". You probably meant "Unix Time", which is often erroneously called "Epoch Time".
.unix() returns Unix Time in whole seconds, but the default moment constructor accepts a timestamp in milliseconds. You should instead use .valueOf() to return milliseconds. Note that calling .unix()*1000 would also work, but it would result in a loss of precision.
You're parsing a string without providing a format specifier. That isn't a good idea, as values like 1/2/2014 could be interpreted as either February 1st or as January 2nd, depending on the locale of where the code is running. (This is also why you get the deprecation warning in the console.) Instead, provide a format string that matches the expected input, such as:
moment("10/15/2014 9:00", "M/D/YYYY H:mm")
.calendar() has a very specific use. If you are near to the date, it will return a value like "Today 9:00 AM". If that's not what you expected, you should use the .format() function instead. Again, you may want to pass a format specifier.
To answer your questions in comments, No - you don't need to call .local() or .utc().
Putting it all together:
var ts = moment("10/15/2014 9:00", "M/D/YYYY H:mm").valueOf();
var m = moment(ts);
var s = m.format("M/D/YYYY H:mm");
alert("Values are: ts = " + ts + ", s = " + s);
On my machine, in the US Pacific time zone, it results in:
Values are: ts = 1413388800000, s = 10/15/2014 9:00
Since the input value is interpreted in terms of local time, you will get a different value for ts if you are in a different time zone.
Also note that if you really do want to work with whole seconds (possibly losing precision), moment has methods for that as well. You would use .unix() to return the timestamp in whole seconds, and moment.unix(ts) to parse it back to a moment.
var ts = moment("10/15/2014 9:00", "M/D/YYYY H:mm").unix();
var m = moment.unix(ts);

http://momentjs.com/docs/#/displaying/unix-timestamp/
You get the number of unix seconds, not milliseconds!
You you need to multiply it with 1000 or using valueOf() and don't forget to use a formatter, since you are using a non ISO 8601 format. And if you forget to pass the formatter, the date will be parsed in the UTC timezone or as an invalid date.
moment("10/15/2014 9:00", "MM/DD/YYYY HH:mm").valueOf()

JavaScript/jQuery datetime difference

I am trying to identify whether given date-time is future date and time or not.
For e.g. My current date time is '25-04-2010 08:26 PM' and if I pass '25-04-2010 09:00 PM' to a JavaScript function, then it should return me '1' if that date-time is future date & time otherwise it should return me '0'.

I decided to do this using timestamp. So I just wrote below code.
var myDate = new Date("April 25, 2011 21:16:00"); // Your timezone!
var myEpoch = myDate.getTime()/1000.0;
document.write(myEpoch);
var cur_date = new Date(); // Current date
var myEpoch1 = cur_date.getTime()/1000.0;
document.write("---"+myEpoch1);
var diff=myEpoch-myEpoch1; // If diff comes minus value, then it is past date-time, otherwise it is future data-time
alert(diff);
thanks.

var myDate=new Date();
myDate.setFullYear(2010,0,14);
var today = new Date();
if (myDate>today)
{
alert("Today is before 14th January 2010");
}
else
{
alert("Today is after 14th January 2010");
}
source: link

This seems like a simple parsing job to me. I won't give you the code, but will give you the approach.
Use split to split the string on ' ' (empty space)
Use split to split the first string [0] on '-'
Use split to split the second string [1] on ':'
-- Now simply concatenate all the strings in the order yyyymmddhhmmss
so your time string will become a signature like : 201004250900
and the second one becomes : 201003250826
Now simply do an integer compare ;)
This is the long winded approach
It just occurred to me that you should be able to parse the time string you're passing to date in javascript, and that makes your life easier... Try that.