AllocHandlInst (FIX tag 209)

intFIX 4.4FIX 4.2

AllocHandlInst (tag 209) is an int field defined in FIX 4.4 and FIX 4.2. It appears in 2 message types, always optionally. It is an enumerated field with 3 defined values.

At a glance

Tag: 209
Name: AllocHandlInst
Datatype: int
Dialects: FIX 4.4 and FIX 4.2
Messages: 2
Valid values: 3

What the specification says

FIX 4.4

Indicates how the receiver (i.e. third party) of Allocation message should handle/process the account details

FIX 4.2

Indicates how the receiver (i.e. third party) of Allocation message should handle/process the account details.

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

A real message using tag 209

AllocationInstruction · FIX 4.4

Tag	Field	Wire value	Meaning
8	BeginString	FIX.4.4
9	BodyLength	168
35	MsgType	J	Allocation Instruction
49	SenderCompID	BOARTEAM
56	TargetCompID	COUNTERPARTY
34	MsgSeqNum	2
52	SendingTime	20240101-12:00:00.000
70	AllocID	EXAMPLE
71	AllocTransType	0	New
626	AllocType	1	Calculated (includes MiscFees and NetMoney)
857	AllocNoOrdersType	0	Not specified
54	Side	1	Buy
53	Quantity	1000000
6	AvgPx	1.09215
75	TradeDate	20240101
78	NoAllocs2 entries	2	repeating group
79	AllocAccount	EXAMPLE
209	AllocHandlInst	1	Match
79	AllocAccount	EXAMPLE
209	AllocHandlInst	1	Match
10	CheckSum	226

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
1	Match	MATCH / Match
2	Forward	FORWARD / Forward
3	Forward and Match	FORWARD_AND_MATCH / ForwardAndMatch

Where tag 209 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	Where in the message
AllocationInstruction	J	Optional	Optional	inside the AllocGrp component
AllocationReport	AS	Optional	—	inside the AllocGrp component

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 209 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 allocHandlInst = message.fields[209]?.raw;// e.g. "1" — Match// The dictionary also carries the labels:const label = fix.dictionary  .fieldByTag(209)  ?.enumValues?.find((e) => e.value === allocHandlInst)  ?.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