[Quickfix-developers] Field Ordering?

[Andrei G. <an...@gm...>]

Hi there,

I was looking at the MessageSorters [.h/.cpp] files to understand
better how QuickFix handles field ordering. I was not really clear how
it handles the rule that 'raw data' must be preceded by a  field
containing the data length. Then I realized that QF orders the fields
by ascending tag order, and *most* data fields (checked in FIX.4.4)
have their tag numbers immediately following  the associated length
tag. For example:

    field number=3D"90" name=3D"SecureDataLen" type=3D"LENGTH"
    field number=3D"91" name=3D"SecureData" type=3D"DATA"

However:

   field number=3D"89" name=3D"Signature" type=3D"DATA"
   field number=3D"93" name=3D"SignatureLength" type=3D"LENGTH"

So, the question is: does QF implement any special handling for data
fields? If so, in which classes are they handled? Maybe I am  missing
something, but it feels as the used approach will fail to produce a
valid massage if the message contains a  signature.

Thanks for you help,

Andrei