client side javascript or server side

Question

I have a report page that filters customers based on some criteria and displays their details on the browser. If the registration date of the customer is after a certain date say 1st January 2011, I need to highlight the date in a different color. I am wondering what is the best way to do this as there are around 800 records to display.

• if i check the date on the client side - javascript , i would be checking and comparing it with the certain date for each record which would slow down processing a lot

• if i run a scheduled script on the server side and set a flag in the database to indicate erroneous records which will set the color on display, how can i do this in a way which is scalable for other fields of the record??

UPDATE

Thanks for the great answers. So if I want to scale this to include all the fields of the record, would it be right to store a flag for each field in a separate table and then check the table to see which flags are set for each record and accordingly change the display??

Answer 1

In case 2, when you mark your records on the server side, output can be done like that if you are using JSPs and the JSTL-Tag library:

Warning: UNTESTED

<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" prefix="c" %>

<c:forEach items="${customerList}" var="customer" varStatus="status">
    <c:if test="${status.first}">
        List of Customers:<br>
        <ul>
    </c:if>
            <li <c:if test="${customer.flag}">class="marked"</c:if>>
               <c:out value="${customer.name}"/>
            </li>
    <c:if test="${status.last}">
       </ul>
    </c:if>
</c:forEach>

If you want to mark entries depending on other records, then you have do adapt the script that sets the flag.