[This message was posted by Fernando Jeronymo of Societe Generale 
<[email protected]> to the "FAST Protocol" discussion forum at 
http://fixprotocol.org/discuss/46. You can reply to it on-line at 
http://fixprotocol.org/discuss/read/80089878 - PLEASE DO NOT REPLY BY MAIL.]

We are aware of the Nagle algorithm and TCP fragmentation, the issue is that 
EBS Live FastFix is using FIX/FAST over TCP but they are not blocking it... yet 
they claim that they follow FAST 1x1 specs.

I was hoping that someone else had worked with them before and had a better 
solution other than (read/decodeKO/error/repeat until decodeOK) or maybe we 
could put pressure on them to at least block their data as Rolf suggested.

Regards,
--Fernando

> Hi Fernando,
> 
> TCP packets have the ability of being fragmented or even merged together
> especially when using the Nagle algorithm (which most sockets use). I
> guess what I'm trying to say is you should never expect to receive just
> one complete packet when dealing with TCP. So I think what you are doing
> is perfect (decode as much as you can, wait for more data then continue
> decoding).
> 
> Brandon
> 
> > Hi Rolf,
> >
> > As per FAST 1x1 Section 10, we would have "BLOCK SIZE (1000
> > bytes) | MSG
> > | ... | MSG | X (byte 1001)"
> >
> > Now the question is, regarding EBS, I am not sure they are doing
> > that... What we seem to receive (and as per their documentation)
> > we have:
> >
> > "MSG | MSG | MSG | ... | MSG" without the block.
> >
> > As per EBS spec (EBS Live FastFIX version 6.3.pdf):
> >
> >3.  4 FAST/FIX Considerations The FAST/FIX message will consist of a
> >        sequence of individual messages, not blocks of messages.
> >
> > Can you or someone else confirm that EBS does not send blocks? I just
> > am unsure on how to decode FIX over FAST over TCP if they are not
> > within a block... right now we try to decode, error, wait for more
> > data, try to decode, error, until I can successfully decode a message.
> >
> > Regards, --Fernando
> >
> > > Hi Fernando,
> > >
> > > please have a look at section 10 of the FAST specification. You can
> > > use blocks to enable reading a whole message before starting to
> > > decode the message. You can also put more than one (complete)
> > > message into a block.
> > >
> > > Let me know if you have any further questions.
> > >
> > > /Rolf
> > >
> > >
> > > > Hi All,
> > > >
> > > > What is the proposed way of correctly parsing a TCP FAST encoded
> > > > message? (FIX over FAST)?
> > > >
> > > > If we are in FIX world, I have: "8=FIX.M.N^A9=...^A10=123^A"
> > > >
> > > > So I can easily search for "8=FIX...^A" and "^A10=NNN^A", and here
> > > > I have my SOM (Start of Message) and EOM (End of Message)
> > > >
> > > > The issue is, this gets encoded over FAST and sent on TCP... then
> > > > we retrieve a FAST encoded message but we don't have any way to
> > > > know when we should start FAST decoding. At this point we try to
> > > > decode, if the message is incomplete I generate an error and wait
> > > > for more data and then when I receive more data I try to decode
> > > > again.
> > > >
> > > > Ideally I would have some kind of framing (not FAST encoded) that
> > > > tells me how many bytes I should expect, or gives me the Begin/End
> > > > of the message, so I can read everything from the socket first to
> > > > then decode later.
> > > >
> > > > Is this something that has been discussed already? If there are
> > > > some guidelines please share them with me, so I can then forward
> > > > them to the market in question :)
> > > >
> > > > Best Regards, --Fernando


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