XML & XBRL
XML – eXtensible Markup Language
XBRL - eXtensible Business Reporting Language
From www.w3schools.com/xml/default.aspWith XML, financial information can be exchanged over the Internet. We should expect to see a lot about XML in B2B (Business To Business) applications in the near future. XML is expected to be the main language for exchanging financial information between businesses over the Internet. Many interesting B2B applications are under development.
XML can also be used to store data in files or in databases. Applications can be written to store and retrieve information.
With XML, your data is available to more users. Since XML is independent of hardware, software and application, you can make your data available to other browser, just HTML browsers. Other clients and applications can access your XML files as data sources, as if they are accessing databases. Your data can be made available to all kinds of "reading machines" (agents).
XML is the mother of Wireless Markup Language (WML). WML is used to markup Internet applications for handheld devices like mobile phones and PDAs. XML may be used to create other new languages.
The future might give us word processors, spreadsheet applications and databases that can read each other's data in a pure text format, without any conversion utilities in between.
This source states that the syntax rules of XML are very simple and very strict. The rules are very easy to learn, and very easy to use. Because of this, creating software that can read and manipulate XML is very easy to do. Note XML tags are case sensitive, unlike HTML which is not case sensitive. XML elements must be properly nested. All XML documents must contain a single root element, and all other elements must be nested within the root element. All elements can have sub elements (children). Sub elements must be correctly nested within their parent element. Elements that belong to the same parent are called siblings.
There is nothing complicated about XML. It is just plain text with the addition of some XML tags enclosed in angle brackets. Software that can handle plain text can also handle XML. In a simple text editor, the XML tags will be visible and will not be handled specially. In an XML-aware application however, the XML tags can be handled specially. The tags may or may not be visible, or have a functional meaning, depending on the nature of the application.
More details on how to program in XML at:
www.w3schools.com/xml/default.asp.From
www.w3.org and www.oasis-open.org/cover/xml.htmlXML was initially developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and they are currently working with Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to developed the standards of XML.
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a simple, very flexible text format derived from the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML). Originally designed to meet the challenges of large-scale electronic publishing, XML is also playing an increasingly important role in the exchange of a wide variety of data on the Web. The goal of XML is to enable generic SGML to be served, received, and processed on the Web. XML has been designed for ease of implementation, and for interoperability with both SGML and HTML. XML will:XML describes a class of data objects called XML documents and partially describes the behavior of computer programs which process them. XML is an application profile or restricted form of SGML. In addition to uses listed in bullets above XML is also intended for one-on-one marketing, workflow management in collaborative authoring environments, and the processing of Web documents by intelligent clients. XML is fully internationalized for both European and Asian languages. XML is designed for the quickest possible client-side processing.
XML documents are made up of storage units called entities, which contain either parsed or unparsed data. Parsed data is made up of characters, some of which form the character data in the document, and some of which form markup. Markup encodes a description of the document's storage layout and logical structure. XML provides a mechanism to impose constraints on the storage layout and logical structure. A software module called an XML processor is used to read XML documents and provide access to their content and structure. It is assumed that an XML processor is doing its work on behalf of another module, called the application. This specification describes the required behavior of an XML processor in terms of how it must read XML data and the information it must provide to the application.
W3C has defined XML in a 10 points list which can be found at
http://www.w3.org/XML/1999/XML-in-10-pointsGreat site for questions and answers about XML:
http://www.ucc.ie/xml/More sites about XML:
www.webdeveloper.com/xml/ www.XML.org was formed and introduced in June 1999 by OASIS, the non-profit Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Systems, to minimize overlap and duplication in XML languages and XML standard initiatives by providing public access to XML information and XML Schemas. They claim that they have grown into a centralized portal and have emerged as a valuable and leading resource to technologists, developers and businesspeople developing purpose-built XML languages.Another site for XML information is
http://www.xml.com/, this site also advertises a free download (well test copy) of an XML browser from www.Ektron.com.Article about how Anet saved $16 million to $20 million by shifting to XML to improve intercompany computer communications:
http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2872548-1,00.htmlArticle dated June 2002 stating that W3C is offering the XML Conformance Test Suite starting June 19,2002, free of charge. The suite consists of 2000 files, each of which tests for a specific feature or combination of features in the second edition of the W3C's published XML 1.0 recommendation.
http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2870587,00.htmlArticle about Boeing’s attempt to reduce the number of procurement systems from 18 to 5 by embarking on a measured plan to connect to Exostar using XML-based standards.
http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/software/story/0,10801,58451,00.htmlArticle discussing Pegasus Solutions Inc., a hotel distribution network providing connections to more than 38,000 hotels, is nearing completion of an XML-based network designed to replace their current database based on ASCII technology.
http://www.computerworld.com/managementtopics/ebusiness/story/0,10801,57624,00.htmlXHTML from
http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/, W3C is trying to set a new set of standards to replace HTML (the last major change to HTML was 1997) called XHTML (eXtensible HyperText Markup Language ). XHTML 1.0 reformulates HTML as an XML application. The big question here is whether web browser providers will implement these standards?From:
http://www.xbrl.org/ Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL), formerly code-named XFRML, is an open specification which uses XML-based data tags to describe financial statements for both public and private companies. XBRL benefits all members of the financial information supply chain. XBRL:Highlights of article in September 1999 Journal of Accountancy introducing XFRML
http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/jofa/sept1999/news.htm The AICPA recently laid the foundation for a bridge that will allow CPAs to move more readily from a paper to an electronic economy…. The new financial reporting language, XFRML, is derived from XML (extensible markup language)….. The coded information is then accessible to many users across all programs…. Publication of financial information in XFRML can save enormous amounts of time in researching and exporting information into other XML-aware applications. …Using XML-based search tools, an investor will be able to accomplish research in minutes, if not seconds, with a few simple keystrokes. Moreover, once the information is gathered, it can be imported into another XML application (an Excel spreadsheet, for example) by clicking on a menu item….XML will allow companies, investors, and industry analysts a way to prepare, publish, exchange and analyze financial reports and the information they contain. It will also allow financial information to be reliably and automatically extracted or exchanged between computer applications.An article in May 2002 in The CPA Letter, discusses who is currently using XBRL
http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/cpaltr/may2002/newxml.htm Reuters and Microsoft announced that they have published their financial statements using XBRL…. Furthermore, General Electric has announced that its Corporate Tax Department will use XBRL to simplify and speed its tax reporting processes. Use of the technology will enable GE to more efficiently coordinate and consolidate financial information from its global subsidiaries.Microsoft’s web page discussing XBRL
http://www.microsoft.com/msft/xbrlinfo.htmWhite paper discussing reasons why XBRL should be implemented
http://www.microsoft.com/msft/XBRL/FinancialXBRLwp.htm "The Road to Better Business Information: Making a Case for XBRL" by: Al Berkeley, Vice Chairman of Thought Leadership at Nasdaq, with John Connors, Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, Microsoft, and Mike Willis, Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopersList of other XBRL resources can be found at
http://www.xbrl.org/Tools.htmA web site for XBRL for academics
http://web.bryant.edu/~xbrl/index.html, this site includes definitional information and contests for undergraduate and graduate students in the area of XBRL.