Setting environment variables
In a normal installation, the XBRL API requires a directory with read/write permissions to the user who launches the tools. That directory is used later for the following purposes:
- A place to search for the license file
- A place to read taxonomies in the different supported taxonomy catalogs
- A place to store application properties and user configuration files
The specific mechanism to obtain the value of that directory is documented here: RSStaticAndUser java class documentation
In sort, if you have no changed anything.
- On windows that directory is the content of the APPDATA environment variable, and the ReportingStandardXBRLTools. Normally this is C:\Users\{Your user name}\AppData\Roaming\ReportingStandardXBRLTools". Note that AppData is a hidden folder.
- On UNIX (Linux, Mac and other *Ix derived OS) it is the user's home directory followed by ReportingStandardXBRLTools.
You can modify the installation configuration by setting the following environment variables and Java Variables in order to set the location of common components such as the license file and taxonomy catalog files. The following environment variables and java variables are recognized by the XBRL API:
- XBRLCATALOGPATH This environment variable points to a ; separated list of directories that can be HOME of Taxonomy Catalogs. The Windows installer already sets the environment variable and the right value pointing to the directory where the installer has installed the Taxonomy Catalog.
- XBRLRSHOME This environment variable points to a directory that will be used as the home directory where Reporting Standard applications store user properties that are used to share information across multiple applications (like the information to connect to the XBRL Repository). The Windows installer does not set this environment variable and the API defaults to the user's home directory. The value is used in Windows and Unix, Java and .NET environments.
- xbrl.rs.home If this java system property exist, it shall point to a directory that will be used instead of the XBRLRSHOME enviroment variable.
- XBRLLIBRARYPATH This environment variable points to the directory where Reporting Standard libraries are installed on the system.
Note: the next directory after the directory pointed to by this variables must have a fixed name ReportingStandardXBRLTools.
There is more information about how the API obtains the path for a user file on the RSStaticAndUser java class documentation
