Command Line Operation

Running Arelle on the Command Line

Method or System	Command
Python source code	python arelleCmdLine.py [arguments]
Windows x64 or 32 bit	"c:\Program Files\arelleCmdLine.exe" [arguments]
MacOS App	/Applications/Arelle.app/contents/MacOS/arelleCmdLine [arguments]
Linux/Unix	./arelleCmdLine [arguments]

Arguments

General Arguments

Flag	Description
-a or --about	Show product version, copyright, and license.
-h or --help	Prints help message and exits
--version	Display Arelle’s version number and exit
--diagnostics	Output system diagnostics information
--showEnvironment or --showenvironment	Show Arelle’s config and cache directory and host OS environment parameters.

Input File Arguments

Flag	Description
-f FILENAME or --file FILENAME	FILENAME is an entry point, which may be an XBRL instance, schema, linkbase file, inline XBRL instance, testcase file, or testcase index file. The FILENAME may be local or a URL to a web-located file. For multiple instance filings may be | separated file names or JSON list of file/parameter dicts [{"file":"filepath"}, {"file":"file2path"} ...].
--username USERNAME	The USERNAME if needed (with the password flag) for web file retrieval .
--password PASSWORD	The PASSWORD if needed (with username flag) for web file retrieval.
-i FILENAME or --import FILENAME	FILENAME is a list of files to import to the DTS, such as additional formula or label linkbases. Multiple file names are separated by a | character.
-d DTS or --diff DTS	FILENAME is a second entry point when comparing (diffing) two DTSes producing a versioning report.
-r FILE or --report FILE	Saves the versioning report (with the diff flag) to the specified FILE.
--package=FILE or --package=URL or --packages=FILE or --packages=URL	Load XBRL taxonomy packages. Option can be repeated to specify multiple packages. Specifying a directory will attempt to load all .zip files in the directory. Command line taxonomy package configuration is not persisted or shared with the GUI. URLs must be full absolute paths. Multiple packages may also be specified as |-separated list.
--packageManifestName	Provide non-standard archive manifest file name pattern (e.g., *taxonomyPackage.xml). Uses unix file name pattern matching. Multiple manifest files are supported in archive (such as oasis catalogs). (Replaces search for either .taxonomyPackage.xml or catalog.xml).
--skipLoading or --skiploading	Skip loading discovered or schemaLocated files matching pattern (unix-style file name patterns separated by |), useful when not all linkbases are needed.

Validation Arguments

Flag	Description
-v or --validate	Validate the file according to the entry file type. For an XBRL file, it is validated according to XBRL validation 2.1 Performs calculation linkbase validation if either --calcDecimals or --calcPrecision are specified Performs SEC EDGAR Filing Manual validations (if --efm selected) Performs Global Filer Manual disclosure system validation (if --gfm=XXX selected). If a test suite or testcase, the test case variations are individually so validated. If formulae are present they will be validated and run unless --formula=none is specified.
--validateDuplicateFacts or --validateduplicatefacts	Select which types of duplicates should trigger warnings (none, inconsistent, consistent, incomplete, complete, all).
--validateXmlOim or --validatexmloim or --oim	Enables OIM validation for XML and iXBRL documents. OIM only formats (json, csv) are always OIM validated.
--baseTaxonomyValidation or --basetaxonomyvalidation	Specify if base taxonomies should be validated. Skipping validation of base taxonomy files which are known to be valid can significantly reduce validation time. disclosureSystem - (default) skip validation of base taxonomy files which are known to be valid by the disclosure system none - skip validation of all base taxonomies all - validate all base taxonomies
--noValidateTestcaseSchema or --novalidatetestcaseschema	Validate testcases against their schemas.
--calc=CALCS	Specify calculations validations: CALCS can be one of: none – no calculations validation. c10 or xbrl21 – Calc 1.0 (XBRL 2.1) calculations. c10d or xbrl21-dedup – Calc 1.0 (XBRL 2.1) calculations with de-duplication c11r or round-to-nearest – Calc 1.1 round-to-nearest mode c11t or truncation - Calc 1.1 truncation mode
--calcDecimals or --calcdecimals	DEPRECATED - XBRL v2.1 calculation linkbase validation inferring decimals.
--calcPrecision or --calcprecision	DEPRECATED - pre-2010 XBRL v2.1 calculation linkbase validation inferring precision.
--calcDeduplicate or --calcdeduplicate	DEPRECATED - de-duplication of consistent facts when performing calculation validation, chooses most accurate fact.
--efm	Select Edgar Filer Manual (U.S. SEC) disclosure system validation (strict).
--efm-skip-calc-tree	Skip walking of calculation tree during EFM validation.
--disclosureSystem=NAME or --disclosuresystem=NAME	Specify a disclosure system, and enable disclosure system-specific validation. Enter --disclosureSystem=help for list of names or help-verbose for list of names and descriptions.
--hmrc	Select U.K. HMRC disclosure system validation.
--utr	Select validation with respect to Unit Type Registry.
--utrUrl=UTRURL or --utrurl=UTRURL	Used with --utr flag. Override disclosure systems Unit Type Registry. UTRURL is the location (URL or file path).
--infoset	Select validation with respect testcase infosets.
--compareInstance or --compareinstance	Compare instance facts against the instance loaded from the given URI.
--compareFormulaOutput or --compareformulaoutput	Compare formula output facts against the instance loaded from the given URI.
--reportPackage or --reportpackage	Ignore detected file type and validate all files as Report Packages.
--taxonomyPackage or --taxonomypackage	Ignore detected file type and validate all files as Taxonomy Packages.
--validationExitCode	Exit with a code indicating validation results: 0 = valid, no issues 2 = usage error (existing parser.error usage) 3 = validation errors found (and/or warnings if --captureWarnings is also used)
--parameters	Specifies parameters for formula and validation (name=value[,name=value]).
--parameterSeparator or --parameterseparator	Used with --parameters argument. Specify parameters separator string (if other than comma, may be a multi-character separator).

Output Arguments

These arguments can override the system settings for the output options below.

Flag	Description
--labelLang=LABELLANG or --labellang=LABELLANG	provides an xml:lang language code to override the system language settings for labels output by the following file options, e.g. --labelLang=en-US
--disableRtl	Disable reversing string read order for right to left languages, useful for some locale settings
--labelRole=LABELROLE or --labelrole=LABELROLE	overrides the standard XBRL 2.1 label role for the labels output by the following file options. e.g. --labelRole=http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/terseLabel

Output File Arguments

The following file options determine the type of file saved by the extension of the file name, the extension may be any of: .html, .htm, .xhtml, .json or .csv

Flag	Description
--DTS=DTSFILE or DEPRECATED --csvDTS=DTSFILE	Write DTS tree into DTSFILE. May be .csv or .html.
--facts=FACTSFILE or DEPRECATED --csvFacts=FACTSFILE	Write fact list into FACTSFILE.
--factListCols=FACTLISTCOLS	Columns for fact list file
--factTable=FACTTABLEFILE or DEPRECATED --csvFactTable=FACTTABLEFILE	Write fact table into FILE FACTTABLEFILE
--factTableCols=FACTTABLECOLS	Columns for fact table file
--concepts=CONCEPTSFILE or DEPRECATED --csvConcepts=CONCEPTSFILE	Write concepts into CONCEPTSFILE
--pre=PREFILE or --csvPre=PREFILE	Write presentation linkbase into PREFILE
--table=TABLEFILE or --csvTable=TABLEFILE	Write table linkbase into TABLEFILE
--cal=CALFILE or --csvCal=CALFILE	Write calculation linkbase into CALFILE
--dim=DIMFILE or --csvDim=DIMFILE	Write dimensions (of definitions) into DIMFILE
--anch=ANCHFILE	Write anchoring relationships (of definition) linkbase into ANCHFILE The wider-narrower hierarchy is shown in a tree view. For each anchored concept, if there are multiple parent (wider) concepts, the others are shown in a second column, “wider”. To additionally show name, documentation, and references on this view, specify one or all of --relationshipCols “Name,Documentation,References”
--relationshipCols or --relationshipcols	Extra columns for relationship file (comma or space separated: Name, Namespace, LocalName, Documentation and References).
--formulae=FORMULAEFILE or --htmlFormulae=FORMULAEFILE	Write formulae linkbase into FORMULAEFILE
--viewArcrole=ARCROLE or --viewarcrole=ARCROLE	Store relationships for the ARCROLE in the file specified by --viewFile argument.
--viewFile=FILE	Specifies the file to store the --viewArcrole relationships.
--roleTypes=FILE	Write defined role types into FILE
--arcroleTypes=FILE or --arcroletypes=FILE	Write defined arcrole types into FILE
--testReport=FILE or --csvTestReport=FILE	Write a test report of validation (of test cases) in specified FILE
--testReportCols=REPORTCOLS	Used with --testReport argument. Specifies columns for test report. REPORTCOLS are comma separated and can be any of these: Index, Testcase, ID, Name, Reference, ReadMeFirst, Status, Expected, Actual“.
--rssReport=FILE	Write a test report of RSS feed processing in specified FILE
--rssReportCols=RSSCOLS	Used with --rssReport argument. Specifies columns for RSS processing. RSSCOLS are comma separated and can be any of these: Company Name, Accession Number, Form, Filing Date, CIK, Status, Period, Yr End, Results”.
--renderedTableLinkbase	Write rendered table linkbase grid into FILE (format determined by extension: .html, .xlsx)
--saveOIMToXMLReport or --saveoimtoxmlreport or --saveOIMinstance or --saveoiminstance	Save a report loaded from OIM into this file XML file name
--deduplicateFacts or --deduplicatefacts	When using --saveDeduplicatedInstance to save a deduplicated instance, check for duplicates of this type (complete, consistent-pairs, consistent-sets).
--saveDeduplicatedInstance or --savededuplicatedinstance	Save an instance document with duplicates of the provided type (--deduplicateFacts) deduplicated.

Logging Arguments

Flag	Description
--logFile=FILE or --logfile=FILE	Write log messages into FILE, otherwise they go to standard output. If FILE ends in .xml it is xml-formatted, otherwise it is text. XML log files contain significant additional details not provided in the text files. Default files named logToPrint, logToStdOut.xml and logToStdError provide output on standard output and standard error streams.
--logFileMode=MODE or --logfilemode=MODE	Write log file mode, a=append if existing, w=overwrite if existing.
--logFormat=FORMAT or --logformat=FORMAT	Specify the Python logger FORMAT for the text description of messages, if absent the default is [%(messageCode)s] %(message)s - %(file)s.
--logLevel=LEVEL or --loglevel=LEVEL	Minimum LEVEL for messages capture, otherwise the message is ignored. Current order of levels are: debug, info, info-semantic, warning, warning-semantic, warning, assertion-satisfied, inconsistency, error-semantic, assertion-not-satisfied, and error.
--logLevelFilter=LOGREGX or --loglevelfilter=LOGREGX	Regular expression filter for logLevel. (E.g., to not match \_-semantic levels, --logLevelFilter=(?!^._-semantic$)(.+).
--logCodeFilter=LOGREGX or --logcodefilter=LOGREGX	Regular expression filter for log message code.
--logTextMaxLength or --logtextmaxlength	Log file text field max length override.
--logRefObjectProperties or --logrefobjectproperties	Log reference object properties (default).
--logNoRefObjectProperties or --lognorefobjectproperties	Do not log reference object properties.
--logXmlMaxAttributeLength or --logxmlmaxattributelength	Truncate XML log file attribute values at length. The default is 4,096,000 for JSON content and 128 for everything else.
--collectProfileStats	Collect profile statistics, such as timing of validation activities and formulae.

Formula Options

Flag	Description
--formula	Specify formula action, If this option is not specified, -v or --validate will validate and run formulas if present: validate - validate only, without running run - validate and run none - prevent formula validation or running when also specifying -v or --validate.
--formulaRunIDs or --formularunids	Specify formula/assertion IDs to run, separated by a | character, or a regex expression.
--formulaCompileOnly or --formulacompileonly	Specify formula are to be compiled but not executed.
--formulaCacheSize or --formulacachesize	Specify the number of fact aspect combinations to cache during formula evaluations. Negative numbers have no limit.
--formulaVarSetTimeout or --formulavarsettimeout	Maximum number of seconds per variable set evaluation before logging a timeout error.
--formulaReportTimeout or --formulareporttimeout	Maximum number of seconds to run all formula processing before logging a timeout error.
--formulaParamExprResult or --formulaparamexprresult	Enable ParamExprResult formula tracing.
--formulaParamInputValue or --formulaparaminputvalue	Enable ParamInputValue formula tracing.
--formulaMaximumMessageInterpolationLength or --formulamaximummessageinterpolationlength	Truncate interpolated expressions in formula messages to this length.
--formulaCallExprSource or --formulacallexprsource	Enable CallExprSource formula tracing.
--formulaCallExprCode or --formulacallexprcode	Enable CallExprCode formula tracing.
--formulaCallExprEval or --formulacallexpreval	Enable CallExprEval formula tracing.
--formulaCallExprResult or --formulacallexprtesult	Enable CallExprResult formula tracing.
--formulaVarSetExprEval or --formulavarsetexpreval	Enable VarSetExprEval formula tracing.
--formulaVarSetExprResult or --formulavarsetexprresult	Enable VarSetExprResult formula tracing.
--formulaVarSetTiming or --formulavarsettiming	Specify showing times of variable set evaluation.
--formulaAsserResultCounts or --formulaasserresultcounts	Specify formula tracing.
--formulaSatisfiedAsser or --formulasatisfiedasser	Specify formula tracing.
--formulaUnsatisfiedAsser or --formulaunsatisfiedasser	Specify formula tracing.
--formulaUnsatisfiedAsserError or --formulaunsatisfiedassererror	Specify formula tracing.
--formulaUnmessagedUnsatisfiedAsser or --formulaunmessagedunsatisfiedasser	Specify trace messages for unsatisfied assertions with no formula messages.
--formulaFormulaRules or --formulaformularules	Specify formula tracing.
--formulaVarsOrder or --formulavarsorder	Specify formula tracing.
--formulaVarExpressionSource or --formulavarexpressionsource	Specify formula tracing.
--formulaVarExpressionCode or --formulavarexpressioncode	Specify formula tracing.
--formulaVarExpressionEvaluation or --formulavarexpressionevaluation	Specify formula tracing.
--formulaVarExpressionResult or --formulavarexpressionresult	Specify formula tracing.
--formulaVarFiltersResult or --formulavarfiltersresult	Specify formula tracing.
--formulaVarFilterWinnowing or --formulavarfilterwinnowing	Specify formula tracing.

Configuration options

It is possible to specify options to be defaults for the web server, such as disclosureSystem and validations, but not including file names.

Flag	Description
--uiLang or --uilang	Language for user interface (override system settings, such as program messages). Does not save setting. Requires locale country code, e.g. en-GB or en-US.
--internetLogDownloads	Log an info message for downloads to the web cache.
--abortOnMajorError	Abort process on major error, such as when load is unable to find an entry or discovered file.
--webserver	Start web server on host:port[:server] for REST and web access. (e.g., --webserver locahost:8080, or specify nondefault a server name, such as cheroot, --webserver locahost:8080:cheroot.) Security: the webserver has no authentication and is for trusted callers only. Do not expose it to untrusted users or networks. See Webserver security.
--skipDTS or --skipdts	Skip DTS activities (loading, discovery, validation), useful when an instance needs only to be parsed.

Internet Connectivity Arguments

Flag	Description
--proxy	Modify and re-save proxy settings configuration. Enter system to use system proxy setting, none to use no proxy, a specific proxy in the format http://[user[:password]@]host[:port] (e.g., http://192.168.1.253, http://example.com:8080, http://joe:secret@example.com:8080), or show to show current (saved)setting.
--internetConnectivity or --internetconnectivity	Specify internet connectivity: online or offline.
--internetTimeout or --internettimeout	Specify internet connection timeout in seconds (0 means unlimited).
--internetRecheck or --internetrecheck	Specify rechecking for newer cache files quarter-hourly, hourly, daily, weekly or never.
--noCertificateCheck	Skip https SSL certificate checking.
--httpsRedirectCache or --httpsredirectcache	Treat http and https schemes interchangeably when looking up files from the webcache.
--cacheDirectory or --cachedirectory	Override the default location of the cache directory.
--httpUserAgent or --httpuseragent	Specify non-standard http header User-Agent value.

Configuration Arguments

Flag	Description
--optionsFile FILE or --optionsfile FILE	Provide a path to a JSON file containing runtime options. These options will be overridden by any command line options provided.
--xdgConfigHome	Specify non-standard location for configuration and cache files (overrides environment parameter XDG_CONFIG_HOME, if also provided).
--disablePersistentConfig or --disablepersistentconfig	Prohibits Arelle from reading and writing a config to the local cache.
--plugin or --plugins	Specify plug-in configuration for this invocation. Enter show to confirm plug-in configuration. Commands show, and module urls are | separated: url specifies a plug-in by its url or filename, relative URLs are relative to installation plug-in directory, (e.g., ‘http://arelle.org/files/hello_web.py’, ‘C:\Program Files\Arelle\examples\plugin\hello_dolly.py’ to load, or ../examples/plugin/hello_dolly.py for relative use of examples directory). Local python files do not require .py suffix, e.g., hello_dolly without .py is sufficient, Packaged plug-in urls are their directory’s url (e.g., –plugins EDGAR/render or –plugins xbrlDB).

Test options

Flag	Description
--testcaseExpectedErrors or --testcaseexpectederrors	For testcase results, specify comma separated additional expected errors by test case id. --testcaseExpectedErrors=testcase-index.xml:test_id1|IOerror,oime:invalidTaxonomy.
--testcaseFilter or --testcasefilter	If any filters are provided, any testcase variation path in the form {testcaseFilepath}:{testcaseVariationId} that doesn’t pass any filter will be skipped.
--testcaseResultsCaptureWarnings or --testcaseresultscapturewarnings or --captureWarnings	Capture warning-level messages as validation results. Applies to testcase variations, RSS feed items, and when used with --validationExitCode, causes warnings to produce exit code 3.
--testcaseResultOptions	For testcase results, default configuration is to pass if any expected result is matched (match-any). Alternatively, require that all expected results are matched (match-all).

Standard Plugins and Options

Many of the plug-ins add command line (in addition to GUI menu) options. For additional detail see the plug-in documentation. A summary of standard plugin options is provided here.

inlineDocumentSet	Specify an inline XBRL document set by JSON parameter: --file ‘[{“ixDocumentSet”:[{“file”:file1},{“file”:file2}…]}]’
--saveInstance	Provides a file name into which to save an XBRL instance document derived from a loaded manifest (Japan FSA) of a document set of inline documents, or loaded single inline document. (Currently supports one target instance document only.)

loadFromExcel	Load from Excel file
	No command line options, but the -f and --file options can specify an Excel document which represents a DTS.

profileCmdLine	Profiles command line operation
--save-profiler-report	Specifies file into which to save a Python profiler report of the timings of Arelle Python methods and routines for the operations performed by the other command line functions. Useful to determine if a long running function is spending excessive time in a function that needs implementation attention.

saveDTS	Produces a Taxonomy Package.
--package-DTS	Specifies a file into which to save a Taxonomy Package representing the loaded DTS.

saveHtmlEBAtables	EBA Table Sets.
--save-EBA-tablesets	Specifies an index file (usually index.html) to represent an html page that holds a table of contents to the EBA tables generated for all loaded EBA Table Linkbase tables in the DTS.

saveLoadableExcel	Saves an Excel workbook
--save-loadable-excel	Saves an Excel workbook representing the DTS (which can be subsequently loaded by loadFromExcel.py plugin.

saveSKOS	Saves a SKOS (OMG standard OWL file).
--save-skos	Saves a SKOS (OMG standard OWL file) representing a semantic view of a DTS based on presentation linkbase entries (for US-GAAP, IFRS, and EDInet style taxonomies).

xbrlDB	Saves XBRL data to a database.
--store-to-XBRL-DB=DBSTR	Store into XBRL DB. Provides connection string: host,[port], user, password, database, [timeout], technology.
	technology can be: postgres - XBRL-US Postgres SQL mssqlSemantic - Semantic MSSQL SQL mysqlSemantic - Semantic MySQL SQL orclSemantic - Semantic Oracle SQL pgSemantic - Semantic Postgres SQL rexster - Rexter (Titan Cassandra) rdfDB - RDF (Turtle, NanoSparqlServer) json - JSON (JSON, MongoDB)
	For rdfDB if hostname is rdfTurtleFile or rdfXmlFile, then database specifies a local file system pathname to store a file. For json, if hostname is jsonFile then database specifies a local file system path name to store into a file.

Example storing into postgres database using XBRL-US schema:

arelleCmdLine -f c:\temp\test.rss -v --disclosureSystem efm-pragmatic-all-years --store-to-XBRL-DB "myhost.com,8084,pgUserId,pgPassword,test_db,90,postgres"

Example storing into local MSSQL database using SQLEXPRESS instance:

arelleCmdLine -f c:\temp\test.rss -v --disclosureSystem efm-pragmatic-all-years --store-to-XBRL-DB "localhost\SQLEXPRESS,,sqlLogin,sqlPassword,,90,mssqlSemantic"

Disclosure System Selections

Run with --disclosureSystem=help to list the disclosure systems that are available for the currently loaded plugins.