Date constructor returns NaN in IE, but works in Firefox and Chrome

Don't use "new Date()", because it takes the input date string as local time:

new Date('11/08/2010').getTime()-new Date('11/07/2010').getTime();  //90000000
new Date('11/07/2010').getTime()-new Date('11/06/2010').getTime();  //86400000

we should use "NewDate()", it takes the input as GMT time:

function NewDate(str)
         {str=str.split('-');
          var date=new Date();
          date.setUTCFullYear(str[0], str[1]-1, str[2]);
          date.setUTCHours(0, 0, 0, 0);
          return date;
         }
NewDate('2010-11-07').toGMTString();
NewDate('2010-11-08').toGMTString();

The Date constructor accepts any value. If the primitive [[value]] of the argument is number, then the Date that is created has that value. If primitive [[value]] is String, then the specification only guarantees that the Date constructor and the parse method are capable of parsing the result of Date.prototype.toString and Date.prototype.toUTCString()

A reliable way to set a Date is to construct one and use the setFullYear and setTime methods.

An example of that appears here: http://jibbering.com/faq/#parseDate

ECMA-262 r3 does not define any date formats. Passing string values to the Date constructor or Date.parse has implementation-dependent outcome. It is best avoided.

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Edit: The entry from comp.lang.javascript FAQ is: An Extended ISO 8601 local date format YYYY-MM-DD can be parsed to a Date with the following:-

/**Parses string formatted as YYYY-MM-DD to a Date object.
 * If the supplied string does not match the format, an 
 * invalid Date (value NaN) is returned.
 * @param {string} dateStringInRange format YYYY-MM-DD, with year in
 * range of 0000-9999, inclusive.
 * @return {Date} Date object representing the string.
 */

  function parseISO8601(dateStringInRange) {
    var isoExp = /^\s*(\d{4})-(\d\d)-(\d\d)\s*$/,
        date = new Date(NaN), month,
        parts = isoExp.exec(dateStringInRange);

    if(parts) {
      month = +parts[2];
      date.setFullYear(parts[1], month - 1, parts[3]);
      if(month != date.getMonth() + 1) {
        date.setTime(NaN);
      }
    }
    return date;
  }

From a mysql datetime/timestamp format:

var dateStr="2011-08-03 09:15:11"; //returned from mysql timestamp/datetime field
var a=dateStr.split(" ");
var d=a[0].split("-");
var t=a[1].split(":");
var date = new Date(d[0],(d[1]-1),d[2],t[0],t[1],t[2]);

I hope is useful for someone. Works in IE FF Chrome