CoveredOrUncovered (FIX tag 203)

intFIX 4.4FIX 4.2FIX 5.0 SP2

CoveredOrUncovered (tag 203) is an int field defined in FIX 4.4, FIX 4.2 and FIX 5.0 SP2. It appears in 7 message types, always optionally. It is an enumerated field with 2 defined values.

At a glance

Tag: 203
Name: CoveredOrUncovered
Datatype: int
Dialects: FIX 4.4, FIX 4.2 and FIX 5.0 SP2
Messages: 7
Valid values: 2

What the specification says

FIX 4.4

Used for derivative products, such as options

FIX 4.2

Used for options

FIX 5.0 SP2

Used for derivative products, such as options

Descriptions are quoted from the FIX Orchestra sources under the Apache 2.0 licence.

A real message using tag 203

NewOrderSingle · FIX 4.4

Tag	Field	Wire value	Meaning
8	BeginString	FIX.4.4
9	BodyLength	117
35	MsgType	D	Order – Single
49	SenderCompID	BOARTEAM
56	TargetCompID	COUNTERPARTY
34	MsgSeqNum	2
52	SendingTime	20240101-12:00:00.000
11	ClOrdID	ORD-10042
54	Side	1	Buy
60	TransactTime	20240101-12:00:00.000
40	OrdType	1	Market
203	CoveredOrUncovered	0	Covered
10	CheckSum	249

Edit and decode it yourself

Shown with | separators for readability. On the wire FIX uses SOH (0x01), an invisible control byte — and because BodyLength and CheckSum are computed over the actual bytes, the two forms have different checksums. Both are valid and both decode here.

Open in the full decoder →

Generated from the FIX 4.4 dictionary and verified at build time: it parses and validates with no issues. Open the decoder to try your own message.

Valid values

A value outside this list is not a parse error — the message still decodes — but validate() reports it as validate/value-not-in-enum.

Value	Meaning	Symbolic name
0	Covered	COVERED / Covered
1	Uncovered	UNCOVERED / Uncovered

Where tag 203 appears

Requiredness is a property of the message, not of the field: the same tag can be optional in one message and conditionally required in another.

Message	MsgType	FIX 4.4	FIX 4.2	FIX 5.0 SP2	Where in the message
CrossOrderCancelReplaceRequest	t	Optional	—	Optional	inside the SideCrossOrdModGrp component
MultilegOrderCancelReplace	AC	Optional	—	Optional	directly on the message body
NewOrderCross	s	Optional	—	Optional	inside the SideCrossOrdModGrp component
NewOrderList	E	Optional	Optional	Optional	inside the ListOrdGrp component
NewOrderMultileg	AB	Optional	—	Optional	directly on the message body
NewOrderSingle	D	Optional	Optional	Optional	directly on the message body
OrderCancelReplaceRequest	G	Optional	Optional	Optional	directly on the message body

Wire format

A whole number, optionally signed. Leading zeros are legal on the wire and are preserved in the raw value. @boarteam/fix parses the value as a number and reports parse/invalid-int when it does not lex as one; the raw string is kept either way.

Read tag 203 in TypeScript

decode.tsts

import { createFixEngine } from "@boarteam/fix";import { dictionary } from "@boarteam/fix-dict-fix44";const fix = createFixEngine(dictionary);const { message, issues } = fix.parse(raw);const coveredOrUncovered = message.fields[203]?.raw;// e.g. "0" — Covered// The dictionary also carries the labels:const label = fix.dictionary  .fieldByTag(203)  ?.enumValues?.find((e) => e.value === coveredOrUncovered)  ?.description;

Decode this in your own code

The same engine that produced the decoded example above is an Apache-2.0 npm package with zero runtime dependencies. It runs in Node and in the browser, and parse() returns problems as data instead of throwing.

npm i @boarteam/fix @boarteam/fix-dict-fix44

Try the decoder Source on GitHub