Last week, we created a way to create template files for test filing XBRL in GoFiler. We also designed a method to open and edit them easily. Now it’s time to add the next level of functionality to this project: a script that allows us to test file XFR files with a single button press. This script will create a pair of new folders in the same directory as the XFR file: “Automated Test File” and “Automated Test Archive”. The first folder will contain the most recent test filing, while the latter will contain a copy of every test filing submitted to the SEC just in case it’s needed for future reference.

This week our blog will focus on another common task that can be automated with GoFiler. When working on an XBRL file, test filing it with the SEC is very routine. GoFiler can validate it, but there is no substitute for pushing it up to the SEC to see if it will pass or fail a test filing. Right now, to test file an XBRL file, a project must be created, and the XFR file must be exported to an XBRL fileset. Then the files should be attached to the project. Then you need to attach a dummy HTML or TXT file onto the project as a primary document before finally test filing it. This whole process can take 3-4 minutes . While that doesn’t sound like a lot, it can be annoying to have to do it over and over again while working on multiple filings. Using Legato, however, we can streamline this process down to a single button press.

This is the fourth and final blog post in this series. In this last entry, we will be taking everything we’ve written so far and adding to it a couple of new functions to allow us to take two separate XFR files and merge the instance files together into a single file. In the end, we’ve allowed the user to select two files to compare, altered the currencies as necessary, merged the files, and exported the instance files into a single document.

Last week we added to our XBRL Merger script, giving it the ability to export files and compare the exported files to see if they were able to be merged. This week, we’ll take it another step further by adding in the ability to read the XBRL instance files into data structures, add some debug information, and add a progress bar to the run function. This week introduces the concept of debug print messages. Often when writing a script, you will encounter an issue where you’re not sure what the actual value of a variable is. Depending on the integrated development environment (IDE) being used to write the code, you can sometimes step through the code with breakpoints and inspect the values for each variable. While we’re going to be adding that feature to GoFiler’s Legato IDE, for now we find it helpful to insert various functions that print variables to a console. By adding a special function to do this, you can make showing/hiding debug information very easy. See the section on the debug_message function’s code below for more.

This week, we will be continuing to write our XBRL Merger script. The previous post covered how to prompt the user for a pair of files, checked to make sure those files were valid XFR files that we could actually access, and finally made sure that they weren’t the same files. This week we’re taking it a step further by opening the files (or switching to them if they are already open), exporting them to new directories, and comparing the contents of these directories. This script is intended to merge two very similar files, where the only difference is a couple of facts being tagged with a different unit, so the exported file sets need to very closely match.