Field 42684 PaymentStreamFormula missing preceeding length field

1

Background:

As part of the FIX 5.0 SP2 Extension Pack 208, a new component PaymentStreamFormulaMathGrp was created with the following field tags

  • 42683 NoPaymentStreamFormulas
    [start repeating]
    • 42684 PaymentStreamFormula
    • 42685 PaymentStreamFormulaDesc
      [end-repeating]

The field tag 42684 PaymentStreamFormula was defined to be of FIX datatype ‘XMLData’.
According to FIX specifications, ‘XMLData’:

"Contains an XML document raw data with no format or content restrictions. XMLData fields are always immediately preceded by a length field. The length field should specify the number of bytes of the value of the data field (up to but not including the terminating SOH)."

Issue: Field tag 42684 PaymentStreamFormula was NOT preceded by a length field.

Question:

  • Can anyone clarify if XMLData is the appropriate FIX datatype for field 42684 PaymentStreamFormula?
  • If XMLData is the intended datatype, what would be the corresponding length field?

Thank you for looking into this matter.
HCLTech

2

You have brought up a valid concern and I have to take some of the responsibility for not updating the datatype description at the time (mid-2014). We expect the field to take only 8-bit characters with values that will not interfere with FIX tag=value format thus the preceding length field becomes unnecessary. In FIXML the “XMLData” datatype indicates that the content is element content rather than an attribute and if MATHML or some other XML-based syntax, will need to be escaped with ![CDATA[…]]:
<?xml version=“1.0” encoding=“UTF-8”?>
<PmtStrm>
<Float>
<Frmla>
<Math Desc=“Sample formula”>![CDATA[<math>
<apply>
<plus/>
<apply>
<times/>
<ci>a</ci>
<apply>
<power/>
<ci>x</ci>
<cn>2</cn>
</apply>
</apply>
<apply>
<times/>
<ci>b</ci>
<ci>x</ci>
</apply>
<ci>c</ci>
</apply>
</math>]]</Math>
</Frmla>
</Float>
</PmtStrm>

3

Thank you for the clarification…