Financial Information EXchange - FIX Message Format Layout

FIX Message Format Layout

The message fields are delimited using the ASCII 01 character. They are composed of a header, a body, and a trailer.

Up to FIX.4.4, the header contained three fields: 8 (BeginString), 9 (BodyLength), and 35 (MsgType) tags.

From FIXT.1.1 / FIX.5.0, the header contains five mandatory fields and one optional field: 8 (BeginString), 9 (BodyLength), 35 (MsgType), 49 (SenderCompID), 56 (TargetCompID) and 1128 (ApplVerID - if present must be in 6th position).

The body of the message is entirely dependent on the message type defined in the header (TAG 35, MsgType).

The last field of the message is TAG 10, FIX Message Checksum. It is always expressed as a three digit number (e.g. 10=002).

Header+Body+Trailer : FIX Content

Example of a FIX message : Execution Report (Pipe character is used to represent SOH character)

8=FIX.4.2 | 9=178 | 35=8 | 49=PHLX | 56=PERS | 52=20071123-05:30:00.000 | 11=ATOMNOCCC9990900 | 20=3 | 150=E | 39=E | 55=MSFT | 167=CS | 54=1 | 38=15 | 40=2 | 44=15 | 58=PHLX EQUITY TESTING | 59=0 | 47=C | 32=0 | 31=0 | 151=15 | 14=0 | 6=0 | 10=128 |

(In the above FIXMessage Body length 9 is correct and checksum 10 was checked out by using the source available from QuickFIX, an open source FIX implementation)

Body
Order / Trade Details Info
Trailer
Security Check thru Signature and CheckSum.

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