XBRL API related discussions

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XBRL 2.1 Reporting Standard API

Product page

[XBRL API product page]

Descripcion

The XBRL API is an object model created on top of the XBRL Specification. The XBRL API has been designed to facilitate the development of user friendly applications or applications that works with XBRL information without having to worry about the complexities of the XBRL syntax and related specifications like XML Schema, XLINK, XPointer etc. Using the XBRL API the user interact with the content of a DTS (XBRL Reports and related metadata in taxonomies and linkbases) using just objects and methods defined in the objects.

Current version of the XBRL API is 2.6.7 and there is ongoing work on version 2.6.8. Changes in the API occurs from time to time in order to add new functionality or reimplement things in order to accelerate execution. The public part of the API is stable and has not suffered any changes in the last year or so.

All Tools from Reporting Standard have been build using Reporting Standard XBRL API.

The API provides access to several components from other libraries like XML Schema aware XPath processing from Saxonica XML processor or Storage capabilities in relational databases using hibernate.

Quick start guide

This section is a walkthrough describing the required steps in order to start using Reporting Standard XBRL API in your own code. The section is divided in two sub sections; one for Java and another one for .NET development environments

Java

  1. Download the latest version of Reporting Standard tools from the downloads page
  2. Install the tools on your computer
  3. Install the license files in the lib folder as indicated in the documentation
  4. Create a new Java project and add the following jar libraries to it:
    1. The XBRL API in the xbrljlib-2.0.jar file
    2. The dependencies are: jdom.jar, commons-logging-1.0.4.jar, log4j-1.2.11.jar, saxon9-s9api.jar, saxon9sa.jar, saxon-xpath.jar, saxon9-jdom.jar and resolver.jar
    3. Saxon and Reporting Standard license files (*.lic) MUST also be available in the Classpath
  5. Take a look at the section describing the environment variables in order to understand how they can be configured in your organization
  6. Start coding

.NET

  1. Download the latest version of Reporting Standard tools from the downloads page
  2. Install the tools on your computer
  3. Install the license files in the lib folder as indicated in the documentation
  4. Download the .NET version of the libraries (ask support at reportingstandard dot com for the download URL)
  5. Read the section about the environment variables and set them according to your settings. Note there is no Classpath in .NET so the XBRLLIBRARYPATH environment variable is of high importance in .NET environments.
  6. Create a new project in, for example, Visual Basic .NET
  7. add references to the following DLL files: xbrljlib-2.0.dll, IKVM.OpenJDK.ClassLibrary.dll, IKVM.AWT.WinForms.dll and IKVM.Runtime.dll
  8. Start coding

Architecture

The API is organized in logical layers. The lowest layer is considered the syntactical layer of the XML files that are the source of the information. One intermediate layer is the object model that represents the DTS content after resolving relationship prohibitions. A higher layer on top of the previous layer is the output of the XBRL validation rules that operated with the input of the previous later. Each one of the layers are able to detect XBRL errors or errors related to the specific layer, for example, the XML parser will detect and raise errors found on the syntax of the XML files. The XML Schema validation layer will raise XML Schema errors and so on. Information can flow between the layers, for example when you load a DTS from files, the information flows from bottom to top, but when you create an XBRL report programatically and later you call de save method, the information flows from top bottom layers.

Environment Variables

Reporting Standard XBRL API can be configured using environment variables in order to set the location of common components. The following environment variables are recognized by the XBRL API:

  • XBRLCATALOGPATH This environment variable points to a ; separated list of directories where files with the name XBRLCatalog.xml exist. Those files must be according to the OASIS XML Catalog syntax convention. For this reason, it is recommended (but not required) that they reference the Catalog.xsd schema. The variable has effect in Windows and Unix, Java and .NET environments. 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.
  • XBRLLIBRARYPATH This environment variable points to the directory where Reporting Standard libraries are installed on the system. This environment variable is used by the .NET platform only in order to let the library find the saxonica license file.

Objects overview

The starting point for almost anything you want to do with Reporting Standard API requires the creation of a DTSContainer object. See the [DTSContainer javadoc page] this object will be used for loading a DTS or for creating a new DTS from scratch, performing XBRL validation, etc.

XBRL Document related objects

Simple API Services

Related documentation

[The XBRL Infoset Specification document] Created by Reporting Standard S.L.

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