HaltReasonChar (FIX tag 327)

charFIX 4.4FIX 4.2

HaltReasonChar (tag 327) is a char field defined in FIX 4.4 and FIX 4.2. It appears in 1 message type, always optionally. It is an enumerated field with 6 defined values. FIX 4.2 calls this field HaltReason; the tag number is unchanged, so the two are the same field on the wire.

Also known as HaltReason

FIX 4.2 calls tag 327 HaltReason. It is the same field on the wire — only the name changed — so a message encoded by either side interoperates.

At a glance

Tag: 327
Name: HaltReasonChar
Datatype: char
Dialects: FIX 4.4 and FIX 4.2
Messages: 1
Valid values: 6

What the specification says

FIX 4.4

Denotes the reason for the Opening Delay or Trading Halt

FIX 4.2

Denotes the reason for the Opening Delay or Trading Halt.

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

A real message using tag 327

SecurityStatus · FIX 4.4

Tag	Field	Wire value	Meaning
8	BeginString	FIX.4.4
9	BodyLength	69
35	MsgType	f	Security Status
49	SenderCompID	BOARTEAM
56	TargetCompID	COUNTERPARTY
34	MsgSeqNum	2
52	SendingTime	20240101-12:00:00.000
327	HaltReasonChar	I	Order Imbalance
10	CheckSum	013

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
I	Order Imbalance	ORDER_IMBALANCE / OrderImbalance
X	Equipment Changeover	EQUIPMENT_CHANGEOVER / EquipmentChangeover
P	News Pending	NEWS_PENDING / NewsPending
D	News Dissemination	NEWS_DISSEMINATION / NewsDissemination
E	Order Influx	ORDER_INFLUX / OrderInflux
M	Additional Information	ADDITIONAL_INFORMATION / AdditionalInformation

Where tag 327 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
SecurityStatus	f	Optional	Optional	directly on the message body

Wire format

A single character. Most char fields are enumerated, so the value is one of a fixed set rather than arbitrary text. @boarteam/fix keeps the value as a string and, for enumerated fields, reports validate/value-not-in-enum when it is not a defined value.

Read tag 327 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 haltReasonChar = message.fields[327]?.raw;// e.g. "I" — Order Imbalance// The dictionary also carries the labels:const label = fix.dictionary  .fieldByTag(327)  ?.enumValues?.find((e) => e.value === haltReasonChar)  ?.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