Hello FIX Community,
In the specifications we see fields with underlying FIX data type “data” which in turn in the FIX data types is documented as having base type “string”.
However, data is also referred to elsewhere as “raw” data.
Is the intent that the content of such fields is seen as “binary”, or that if “binary” data is to be transmitted, it should be suitably encoded in a scheme that can survive string conversion (e.g. MIME, HEX, Base64).
If “data” was to be survivable across conversions between systems, handlers would explicitly have to skip the field content during processing. We feel this is an unlikely intention with the more likely intention that “data” be represented in programs using String or Character with a requirement that any binary content is suitably encoded to make it survivable across character conversions.
If someone has an opinion on the correct interpretation, I would be grateful to hear it (TIA).
In particular, XMLData would be seen as character (it defines its own encoding), and within if there is binary data it has to be encoded to make it survivable across conversions.
-CC.