Javascript onfocus event handler will only allow me to carry out one function

I'm a bit of a rookie with Javascript so I apologise now if the answer is something obvious. My problem is that, on focusing on a given textarea, I want to both clear its contents and change the display value of a separate div from 'none' to 'block'. Doing these things separately wasn't a problem.

Clear contents:

onfocus="if (this.value == 'Update your status') {this.value = '';}"

and changing the display property of the separate div:

onfocus="displayControls();"
<script type="text/javascript">
            function displayControls() {
                 if (document.getElementById('statusUpdaterControls').style.display == "none") {
                     document.getElementById('statusUpdaterControls').style.display = "block";
                }; 
            }; 
</script>

When I have then tried to combine the two, either in the onfocus event of the textarea, or in the displayControls() function above like this:

    <script type="text/javascript">
                function displayControls() {
                    if (document.getElementById('statusUpdater').value == 'Update your status') {
                        document.getElementById('statusUpdater').value = '';
                    }; 
                    if (document.getElementById('statusUpdaterControls').style.display == "none") {
                        document.getElementById('statusUpdaterControls').style.display = "block";
                    }; 
                }; 
            </script>

suddenly neither solution works... Any help would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT: I have found a solution - by putti开发者_开发百科ng the clear content code into an onclick event and keeping them separate, both items are carried out. I would still appreciate any insight into what I was doing wrong earlier however as I must have been doing something silly I can improve on for the future. Thanks in advance.

The onfocus accepts a function, not a string, so:

something.onfocus = displayControls;