XBRL International releases Conformance Suite for Dimensions Specification 1.0

 

14 June 2006

 

 

XBRL International has released a Dimensions Conformance Suite as a Candidate Recommendation.  It provides a range of tests to enable software vendors to verify that applications have correctly implemented Dimensions Specification 1.0, which is also at the Candidate Recommendation stage. 

 

Feedback on the Conformance Suite is welcome.  Both it and the Dimensions Specification are expected to be approved soon as formal XBRL International Recommendations, after which their content will remain stable. 

 

The Dimensions Specification itself is a modular, optional extension to the XBRL 2.1 Specification allowing XBRL taxonomy authors to define and restrict dimensional information for instance authors to use in the segment and scenario elements of the context element of XBRL instance documents.  A typical example of its use is the ability to define regional and product dimensions for basic fact elements such as sales – although its potential uses go far beyond this simple case. 

 

The Conformance Suite contains a set of tests, including sample XBRL taxonomies, linkbases and instance documents, which demonstrate the different error conditions which must be reported by processors which are compliant with the Dimensions Specification.  Documentation accompanying the Suite explains the tests.

 

The use of the Suite is an important aid to correct implementation and the interoperability of applications.

 

The Suite is published on http://www.xbrl.org/SpecRecommendations/.  The Summary Document described the Suite is available at www.xbrl.org/2006/XDT-CONF-CR3-2006-06-06.rtf (normative rtf version) and http://www.xbrl.org/2006/XDT-CONF-CR3-2006-06-06.htm (html version).  The full Suite of tests is available from http://www.xbrl.org/2006/XDT-CONF-CR3-2006-06-06.zip.

 

XBRL members may provide comments direct to the International Specification Working Group.  Non-members should send comments to spec@xbrl.org or to the authors shown on the Summary Document.  

 

 

Announced by:

Peter Calvert

XBRL International

 

 

___________