Formula
Working Group of XBRL International issues 2nd Public Working Draft
of the Formula Specification
24th July 2007
The Formula Working Group of XBRL International has
published the second Public Working Draft (PWD) of the Formula 1.0
Specification. It will be found at http://www.xbrl.org/SpecPWDs/.
You would probably do best to read the Overview Document first - this is at http://www.xbrl.org/Specification/XBRL-Formulas-Overview-PWD-2007-07-13.rtf
The feedback received from the first Public Working
Draft has played a very important part in providing the necessary input for
this important update. In particular new filters have been introduced including
dimensional and implicit filters.
This is a complicated specification - understanding it
can be made easier by also reviewing a tutorial produced by Herman Fischer, one
of the members of the Working Group. This is located at http://herm.ws/XBRL/files/docs/FormulaTutorial.ppt
- but please note that this tutorial is NOT part of the draft and is NOT
an XBRL International product, but is entirely the work of Mr. Fischer.
Items not addressed in this PWD include:
- A function registry or any mechanism to develop user defined
functions
- Validation or any other usage patterns
- Formula chaining
Feedback is eagerly sought from all those who have an
interest in this very important piece of functionality. This includes, to name
but a few:
- engineers and technical architects with a firm grounding in XML
Schema, XPath and XLink;
- regulators, banks and others collecting large amounts of financial
and performance information who will use it to impose complex validation
rules to both improve the quality of data that arrives and automate the
promulgation of those rules so that they can be executed in a distributed
manner;
- professional analysts, broker/dealers, hedge and mutual funds as well as a wide
range of financial infomediaries who will will use the formula specification to define
proprietary analytics that can be used to add value to raw performance
information.
In other words, if you're reading this, you probably
have a need to use this specification, which probably also means that you have
some valuable input to make to its development. So, please take the time to
look at it and provide your input to the Formula Working Group - it will be
well worth your time.
Announced by:
Hugh Wallis
Director of Standards Development
XBRL International Inc.