Editing XBRL (section)

====Label Linkbase====
This linkbase provides human readable strings for concepts. Using the label linkbase, multiple languages can be supported, as well as multiple strings within each language.

XBRL aims to become a worldwide standard for electronic business reporting. This requires taxonomies to present business data in many different languages. Therefore, it is important to be able to create an element that is assigned with labels for different languages. There may also be different labels for different purposes. All labels are stored and linked to the elements in a label linkbase.
Elements defined in a schema are built to convey accounting meaning to computers. In order to make it easier for computers to process their names, they have to obey some rules. For example, the use of spaces is not allowed so 'Cash and Cash Equivalents' would be named 'CashAndCashEquivalents' . Additionally, big taxonomies such as IFRS obey specific rules of naming and labelling to ensure consistency within the schema. For example, there could be a list of words that are excluded from the names, e.g., :and:, "of"&nbsp;..., or words that appear only in a particular order (i.e., 'Net' or 'Total' at the end of the label after a comma).
In the label linkbase, elements are connected to human readable labels using "concept-label" arcrole.
As mentioned above, elements can be assigned to labels in different languages. An example that describes definitions of labels of the IFRS element AssetsTotal in English, German and Polish is provided below.
<syntaxhighlight lang="xml">
<label xlink:type="resource" 
 xlink:role="http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/label" 
 xlink:label="ifrs_AssetsTotal_lbl" 
 xml:lang="en">Assets, Total</label>

<label xlink:type="resource" 
 xlink:role="http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/label" 
 xlink:label="ifrs_AssetsTotal_lbl" 
 xml:lang="de">Vermögenswerte, Gesamt</label>

<label xlink:type="resource" 
 xlink:role="http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/label" 
 xlink:label="ifrs_AssetsTotal_lbl" 
 xml:lang="pl">Aktywa, Razem</label>
</syntaxhighlight>

To distinguish between languages, XBRL uses the XML attribute lang. Taxonomy creators may also define different labels for one element. One of the ideas of XBRL is that the information about the period and currency for which the element is reported is not contained within an element definition but is described by a context in instance documents. In financial reporting on the other hand, many terms express the date for which they are being reported, for instance Property, Plant and Equipment at the beginning of year and Property, Plant and Equipment at the end of year. XBRL allows the creation of different labels depending on the context in which an element will be used.
<syntaxhighlight lang="xml">
<label xlink:type="resource" 
 xlink:role="http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/label" 
 xlink:label="ifrs_AssetsTotal_lbl" 
 xml:lang="en">Property, Plant and Equipment, Net</label>

<label xlink:type="resource" 
 xlink:role="http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/periodStartLabel" 
 xlink:label="ifrs_AssetsTotal_lbl" 
 xml:lang="en">Property, Plant and Equipment, Net, Beginning Balance</label>

<label xlink:type="resource"
 xlink:role="http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/periodEndLabel" 
 xlink:label="ifrs_AssetsTotal_lbl" 
 xml:lang="en">Property, Plant and Equipment, Net, Ending Balance</label>
</syntaxhighlight>
The example above shows how three different labels are assigned to one element by applying different role attributes on labels.