Re: [Quickfix-developers] FIX Engine APIs - any standardisation?

[<OM...@th...>]

There is no standarization of API's like those you would find for say XML
like DOM and SAX.  FIX only standardizes the protocol at the message level,
not at the API level.  You will often find similarties between products,
due to the pretty limited problem set. There is only so many sensible ways
to construct a FIX message for instance.

Generally the big architecural different you will find between FIX engines
is whether they are in-process libraries, or out of process servers.  I
would say switching between these two types is the biggest potential risk.

QuickFIX, for instance, is in-process library.  So an application that
links in QuickFIX is the same one that establishes the connection to the
counterparty.  It relies on you to provide your own middleware solution if
you need one.  Some other engines establish the FIX connections in a
separate process and provide an API that talks to that process through one
or multiple middleware solutions, like CORBA.  Some engines do both.

Otherwise, assuming some decent level of abstaction, I don't think
switching between product would be terribly complicated.  There is no
guarantee of this however.  Other issues like threading models and session
management systems could crop up.  Creating and parsing messages would be
the easiest part of the conversion.

--oren



|---------+----------------------------------------------->
|         |           Alex Hornby <al...@an...>        |
|         |           Sent by:                            |
|         |           qui...@li...|
|         |           ceforge.net                         |
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|         |           02/13/2003 03:30 AM                 |
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  |       To:       quickfix-developers <qui...@li...>              |
  |       cc:                                                                                    |
  |       Subject:  [Quickfix-developers] FIX Engine APIs - any standardisation?                 |
  >----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|




Hi,

A general FIX question really:

Are the C++ & Java APIs for the various FIX engines all different, or is
there some kind of common base functionality?

e.g. I'm currently using a lot of CORBA functionality, and although the
various ORBs differ they have a lot of APIs in common.

I guess if the various FIX engines APIs are different then it makes
choosing the right FIX engine crucial as one won't be able to change
over easily later.

Cheers,
Alex.




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