The word `taxonomy' stands for the rules governing classification. This classification
may be with respect to anything like living
creatures, organization structure, etc. In this
classification, the lower level elements down the
hierarchy always have many parents. These classifications often form networks to
represent relationships between elements contained
in them.
To begin with the concept of schema, let us
first take into consideration, the example on
assets. The information on what an asset is and how
a computer should treat it, is provided in schema files. The schema stores information
about taxonomy elements (their names, ids, and other characteristics). Schemas are created by
XML language and the technical extension of schema files have .xsd extension.
Technically speaking, every schema document opens with <schema> tag and closes with
</schema> tag. An element is defined inside the schema. However, there might be different
elements, so to distinguish different elements, "namespaces" attribute is used.
Thus, the main purpose of XBRL schemas is to provide the computer with information on
how it should represent and process accounting terms. As explained in the XBRL section,
computers do not have built-in accounting knowledge, so they have to be taught what a particular
concept means and what its characteristics are. |
