Making display = block work in IE

[cweaver]

I have this html

<div id="AuctionItem">
   <textarea name="AuctionItemDescription" cols="85" rows="3" onfocus="javascript:if(this.value=='Please describe your auction item here and include its value.')this.value=''" >Please describe your auction item here and include its value.</textarea>	
   </div>

and this CSS

#AuctionItem	{
    	display:none;
    	}

and this JS

function ShowDescription()
    {
    	showBlock("AuctionItem");
    }
    
    function showBlock(id){
    	// Netscape 4
    	if(ns4){
    		document.layers[id].display = "block";
    	}
    	// Explorer 4
    	else if(ie4){
    		document.all[id].style.display = "block";
    	}
    	// W3C - Explorer 5+ and Netscape 6+
    	else if(ie5 || ns6){
    		alert(document.getElementById(id).style.display);
    		document.getElementById(id).style.display = "block";
    		alert(document.getElementById(id).style.display);
    	}
    }

(Although not shown above, due credit is given to Martial Boissonneault at getElementById.com)

Although I don't believe it should matter, "AuctionItem" is within a table. The initial alert shows nothing, while the second shows 'block'; the div remains hidden. When I change the CSS manually and refresh, it appears as desired. How do I change the div's display property from 'none' to 'block' through JavaScript in IE? It works in FF.

Thanks for any and all suggestions.

[cweaver]

I can clearly hear Roseanne Rosannadanna saying: "Never mind!"

IE was getting confused (poor thing!) because there was another element with the name property set to AuctionItem. When I changed its name to AuctionItemCheckbox, IE was able to understand that when I said getElementById I meant getElementById!

Has anyone else had this problem and is it a well known bug? Or is there something else that I'm not getting yet?

[felgall]

It is a well known bug that IE maps a lot of named fields to the corresponding variable names.

Also a simpler version of your Javascfript would be:

function ShowDescription()
    {
    	showBlock("AuctionItem");
    }
    
    function showBlock(id){
    	  document.getElementById(id).style.display = "block";    }

No one uses IE4 or Netscape 4 any more.

[cweaver]

Thanks for writing back. I will forever be watching my names and id's.

[felgall]

When Javascript runs fine in Firefox and Opera but then screws up in IE the unhelpful field mappings that IE does are usually the cause.