Message Format Principles

The transmission of data, telegrams or narrative messages (record material) over the facilities of one or more telecommunication networks, requires agreed-to message formats for traffic handling over these networks. This paper is designed to be a definitive discussion of the principles to be used for developing message formats. It is based upon the current efforts of American National Standards Institute Task Group X3S33, Message Header Formats. The subject of Message Format Principles no doubt connotes various things to various people. For example, it would have a certain significance to a person who has spent a lifetime in the communications world, while a person in another field would wonder what the subject was all about. With this in mind, it seems appropriate to define some of the terms which will be used in this paper. Each individual may not wholly agree with each definition. But if everyone will accept them for the purposes of this paper, we should better be able to understand the meaning of the “message.”