Core Pattern
The core pattern which describes what XBRL provides is explained in the graphic which I have provided below to which I have added some numbers to help me reference specific parts of the graphic: An " Information Block " is literally a block of information. Not a block of data, a block of information. There is a difference. Data is not self aware. Information is self aware data. Information is data in context. Data is interpretable only locally, for example within a specific software application. Information is interpretable globally. For example, "241,086,000,000" is data. But “assets for the consolidated legal entity Microsoft as of June 30, 2017 was $241,086,000,000 which is expressed in US dollars and rounded to the nearest millions of dollars"; that is information. For a machine to be able to interpret information, that information needs to be in a form that the machine can read. XBRL is such a global open standard machine readable for...