Fundamental Semantics of Extensible Business Reporting Language Dimensions

Introduction: In my previous article, I have discussed a broad overview of the concepts of XBRL dimensions. Today I am going to discuss about the semantics of XBRL dimensions. Hope you enjoy reading. This article assumes that the reader has gone through the former article here.

A Detailed View of Extensible Business Reporting Language Instance

Introduction: XBRL instance is the XML document that contains the real data in an XML format. This document expects a fundamental knowledge about XBRL, which you can read from my posts here. At this point, I will discuss about an instance document in detail.

A Detailed View of Extensible Business Reporting Language Taxonomy

This is the second article in the extensible business reporting language series. If you have not read the first one, you can read it here. This article assumes that the reader has already read this previous article. In this article, I will attempt to cover the most important aspects in detail.

Fundamentals of Extensible Business Reporting Language

What is Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL): XBRL is an XML based reporting standard mainly designed for financial reporting. However, just like any XML based format, the XBRL standard is open enough to fit into other purposes as well. Most developed countries use XBRL for all financial reporting purposes. There are many documentation about XBRL which are suited to the accounting professionals and business men. However, there is a scarcity of technical documentation. So, I will explain the essential concept of XBRL in this text. Please note that XBRL specification is a very complex specification and it would require more than one article to explain properly. Please stay tuned for more articles.

The following URL will give an idea about how an XBRL document might look in a human readable view http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/viewer?action=view&cik=1419793&accession_number=0001144204-11-051027&xbrl_type=v#

Traversing the XPath

What is XPath: XPath is an expression language that points to data represented in an XML document. XPath can point to one or more nodes in an XML document and perform basic arithmetic operations. XPath is a very rich language and selection of nodes can be based on any condition including arithmetic comparisons.

Why is XPath important: XPath is used in many other very important specifications. For example, XML Styling Language Transformation (XSLT), and XPointer (XML Pointer). XML Styling language Transformation can be used to generate one XML from another. It can also be used to generate human readable XHTML documents from an XML document. XPointer itself is used in specifications like XLink. (Which I discussed in earlier posts)

XPointer Primer

In my earlier post on XLink, I have explained that XLink uses XPointer to point to nodes in the XML. So, I decided to write an article on XPointer.

What is XPointer: XPointer is a specification that allows pointing to nodes in an XML. XLink in dependent on XPointer specification, and so is XPath specification, which is used heavily in XSLT(XML Styling Langage Transformation). XPointer is compact and non-XML, and is designed to be able to fit into a URL (in the fragment part).

 

X-Link Extended Links

What is X-Link: X-Link is a specification that allows to link between different XML tags. It is very much like an anchor in HTML, you know the regular <a href="..."></a>. However, X-Link is much more versatile and powerful as we will see.

Unlike HTML anchor tag (which is defined to be able to display a visible link), the use of X-Link is not that limited, and depends on where it is used (Is not all other XML based specifications). As such X-Link specification is not designed to be used on its own, there must be other specifications that define specific rules to use it. It is pretty much like XML itself. XML can be used in many ways, and other standards and specifications define what some XML content means. SOAP and WSDL are two specification that use XML specification. Similarly, Extensible Business Reporting Language is a specification that uses X-Link.