xbrl vs xbrli

[Larry Okongo]

Hello everyone,
I am a beginner with xbrl and so far I am doing some work with the xbrl instance documents from SEC. However, I have come across some something that is quite confusing. What is the major difference between xbrl and xbrli especially when used as root elements in the instance xbrl document?
Here are two separate scenarios:

<xbrli:xbrl xmlns:xsi=”http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance&#8221; xmlns:xlink=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink”…&gt;. </xbrli:xbrl>

and

<xbrl xmlns:utr=”http://www.xbrl.org/2009/utr&#8221; xmlns:iso4217=”http://www.xbrl.org/2003/iso4217″…>…</xbrl&gt;

I have searched for answers regarding this and all I can get are contradicting replies.
I appreciate any help in helping me better understand this.

[David Tauriello]

Larry –

An instance document is a collection of facts that together make up a business report. At a technical level an instance document is an XML document with a root element of <xbrli:xbrl … >. See https://specifications.xbrl.org/xbrl-essentials.html

Please post a URL where the second reference exists; I’m not entirely clear about the context for usage.

[Larry Okongo]

Thanks a lot David for the clarification.

Here is a link where I found the second scenario as stated in my post.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1280263/000156459019010114/amba-20190131.xml

[David Tauriello]

Larry – thanks for the clarification as I misunderstood and thought there was a single instance where these two declarations were made (I read too fast and missed your ‘Here are two separate scenarios.’)

In this second example, the <xbrl> element is used instead of <xbrli:xbrl> – as far as I know, it provides the same necessary function as a container element for the instance and location that allows declaration of namespaces necessary to the file. See http://www.xbrl.org/Specification/XBRL-2.1/REC-2003-12-31/XBRL-2.1-REC-2003-12-31+corrected-errata-2013-02-20.html#_4.1

See also https://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml-names/#scoping-defaulting

[Larry Okongo]

Thanks David,
this is quite clearer. Since both <xbrli:xbrl> and <xbrl> provide a container within which declaration of namespaces is done, what does the prefix in the first case “xbrli” mean? Just like:
xbrl – Extensible Business Reporting Language, what does the “i” in “xbrli” represent sir? That’s if it is also an acronym anyway.

[David Tauriello]

xbrli = instance, which is the collection of facts in a report.

[Larry Okongo]

Thanks alot David, I really appreciate your help sir.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 1 month ago by Larry Okongo.

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