XBRL Linkbase
Definition
XBRL Linkbase is a technical term for a relationships file. Linkbases are XML documents (files) which follow the XLink specification. They are designed to give information about the elements in a XBRL Taxonomy (and in the case of the footnote linkbase, in an instance document).
Structure
Linkbases are a collection of Links, which themselves are a collection of locators, arcs, and potentially resources.
A linkbase is composed of links between two concepts defined in a taxonomy (such as in the presentation linkbase, which organizes concepts in a taxonomy in a way that is understandable for a human reader), or links between one XBRL concept and a resource related to it (such as in the label linkbase, which links concepts in an XBRL taxonomy to one or more labels - descriptions assigned to the concept for different purposes or in different languages).
Official Linkbases
The XBRL 2.1 specification defines five core types of linkbases:
- XBRL Label Linkbase
- XBRL Reference Linkbase
- XBRL Calculation Linkbase
- XBRL Definition Linkbase
- XBRL Presentation Linkbase
- XBRL Footnote Linkbase
Locators are elements that essentially reference a concept and provide an arbitrary label for it. In turn, arcs are elements indicating that a concept links to another concept by referencing the labels defined by the locators. Some arcs link concepts to other concepts. Other arcs link concepts to resources, the most common of which are human-readable labels for the concepts.
