XBRL API related discussions

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 2.6.4, but 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.

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.

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.

DTSContainer wiki page

Related documentation

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