Documentation

User’s Manual and Translating Arelle to your language, XBRL Spain, 2011

Tasks

This section describes the user interactions for a few simple tasks.  The following section describes the menus currently implemented.

Producing Versioning Report

To produce a versioning report, two DTSes have to be open. 

1. Select open file () and choose the ”fromDTS”.  (If done recently you may select a prior-opened file from the files menu recently-opened files list.) 
2. Select open file () and choose the ”toDTS”. 
3. Select compare DTSes () and enter the file name to save the versioning report.
4. If done, you may close the DTSes by selecting close () twice (once per DTS).

Consuming (Validating) a Versioning Report

To validate a versioning report, it first has to be opened. 

1. Select open file () and choose the versioning report file.
2. You may browse its contents in the Versioning Report tab.  Selecting an entry in the versioning report will display any detailed properties in the Properties tab.
3. Select validate ().
4. Messages in the messages pane may be saved to a file with the tools menu, save messages to file.
5. close () the report

Running test case, test suite, or validating an XBRL DTS or instance. 

1. Select open file () or open web () and choose the
   • Test case file
   • Test suite index file
   • XBRL instance or inline XBRL instance
   • XBRL DTS schema or linkbase
   • Archive file (zip, xfd, or frm).  (When chosing an archive file, a secondary dialog will allow chosing the file to open within the archive.)
2. You may browse contents of the test case, test suite, XBRL instance, or XBRL DTS, in the appropriate tab panes.  Selecting entries in a tab pane will display any detailed properties in the Properties tab and also synchronize any linked entries in other tab panes.
3. Select validate ().
4. Messages in the messages pane may be saved to a file with the tools menu, save messages to file.
5. close () the input

Note that there is a special case for selecting disclosure system rules validations (SEC EFM and ITA GFM) for test cases, test suites, and XBRL documents.  The tools menu, Validation -> Disclosure system checks, has to be selected, which places a check mark in the menu entry, before loading the test case, test suite, or XBRL document.  This is to enable certain disclosure system rule checks which are performed prior to loading and parsing the input files.  The Disclosure system rules checks menu entry is a toggle, selecting it again will turn off the checkmark.

The disclosure system checks are controlled by a file lib/disclosuresystems.xml, which specifies each disclosure system (such as Japan FSA, US SEC) and pertinent information (such as the file of standard taxonomies to be loaded).  There are two US SEC entries, one for Edgar Filer Manual rule checking, and the other for Global Filing Manual rule checking.

Note that the following validations are currently available:

• Versioning report features of CR-Base, CR-Concept Basic, and CR-Concept Extended
• Base spec XBRL 2.1 tests
  • Calculation tests either inferring precision or decimals
• XBRL Dimensions tests
• Disclosure systems:
  • SEC EFM features tested by the SEC EFM test suite (no others yet)
  • ITA GFM
  • Users can update the lib/disclosuresystems.xml file
• Unit Type Registry tests
• Formula:  Formula output instance, consistency assertions, existence assertions, value assertions, sequence partitioning, fallback values processing, and commonly used filters and functions are complete.  Extension modules are complete, including validation messages, multi-instance, chaining, aspect-cover and concept-relation filters. (Less common filters and functions will be added as users need them and otherwise as time permits.)

The current source code uses the lxml XML parser, its XML schema validation is not reliable for XBRL.  Arelle implements schema checks for data typing, particle model composition, and attribution checks. 

Menus

File – open file () can open any of these, from an open file chooser dialog:

• XBRL instance
• XBRL inline XBRL instance
• XBRL taxonomy schema file
• XBRL linkbase
• XBRL test case file (SEC and Versioning have been tested)
• XBRL test case index file ( ” )
• ZIP, XFD, or FRM archive file of any of the above

File – open from web () from a textbox to paste or enter a URL

File – attach file can open a separate formula (or any other) linkbase (or schema file) to be attached to a loaded DTS.  All GUI views of the DTS will be reloaded.

File – close () closes the most recently opened file

File – quit (closes the application)

File – recently opened files list

(To produce a versioning report you must open two DTSes or instances, the first being the fromDTS and the second being the toDTS.)

Tools menu

Tools – Validation – Validate () .  Validates according to what was opened.

• If an instance, inline XBRL instance, DTS schema or linkbase file were loaded, validation will perform XBRL validation (Base spec, XDT, Generic, and formula) and Disclosure Systemvalidation (if the toggle is switched on).
• If a test case, the variations of the test case are run.  That means any readMeFirst files are loaded, and validation is then performed, before advancing to the next variation of the test case.
• If a test cases index file, each test case file in the index is run.

Tools – Validation – Disclosure system checks.  This is a toggle which produces a check mark when selected.  If selected every file is inspected before loading for the allowed files and file contents, and validation is set to use the SEC Edgar tests.

Tools - Validate – Select disclosure system…: a tree view of the disclosure systems that may be selected.

Tools – Validate – Calc linkbase checks.  This is a toggle which produces a check mark when selected.  If selected the summation-item (calculation linkbase) checks are run, and also the essence-alias and requires-element (definition linkbase) checks.

Tools – Validation – Infer Decimals in calculations.  This is a toggle which produces a check mark when selected.  If selected the summation-item (calculation linkbase) checks infer decimals (as proposed for spec. change) instead of the current inferring of precision.  When inferring precision, instance values of zero are always invalid, but legal and processed as expected when inferring decimals.

Tools – Validation – Unit Type Registry validation.  This is a toggle which produces a check mark when selected.  If selected Unit Type Registry validation is performed as part of the Tools – Validation – Validate operation.

Tools – Formula – Parameters:  Provides checkbox selection of tracing features and entry of external values to formula parameters.

Tools – Compare DTSes () .  If exactly two DTSes are loaded, this initiates versioning report production.  The user is asked where to save the versioning report.  This should be a convenient neighboring directory to the two DTSes (as relative paths are used in versioning report URLs.

Tools – RSS Watch.  A submenu (also available on the RSS watch pane) allows configuring options (what feed, what validations to perform, text matching (regex), and a formula linkbase of assertions to run.  Start initiates the RSS watch feature.  Stop requests it to stop at the next opportunity (it is running in the background and can be interrupted at certain points in the cycle).  The feed refreshes 10 minutes after last cycle completes.  The publish date is used to determine what has been looked at already (clear this field in the options dialog to look at all filings again). 

Tools – Web cache – Work offline.  Use in firewall, airplane, hotel, or camping modes to prevent web access for checking on Python web cache for file updates.

Tools - Web cache – Clear.  Removes the contents from the Python web cache.  The web cache is also checked weekly for file updates on host servers.

Tools - Web cache – Manage.  (Windows only)  Invokes the operating system’s File Manager on the web cache directory.

Tools – Messages log – Clear ().  Clears the messages log window.

Tools - Messages log – Save to file.  Prompts the user to choose a save-to file name, and saves the messages window contents.  (Individual messages can also be selected and cntrl-C copied to clipboard.)

Help – About provides the Apache 2 license information.

Toolbar – provides buttons for the file open, web open, close, find, validate, and compare DTSes functions.

Find dialog – allows finding entries in instances, DTSes, and RSS feeds.  Tooltips on dialog give details of the options.

Instance and DTS searches:  Matching is either by text (case insensitive anywhere in scope of target), regular expression, or XPath 2 expression.

Text and regular expressions have choices of scope of matching, in DTS (such as name, label, substitution group) and in instances (such as in label, value, context).

XPath 2 expressions match any of the DTS options by a context item (“.”) set to the schema element node, and any of the instance options by a context tiem (“.”) set to the fact item node.  For instance matching implemented xfi functions registry functions are available.  Expression result of effective boolean value of true( ) causes the concept or fact item to be matched for the search.