Circular Reference exception with JSON Serialisation with MVC3 and EF4 CTP5w
- by nakchak
Hi
I'm having problems with a circular reference when i try and serialise an object returned via EF4 CTP5. Im using the code first approach and simple poco's for my model.
I have added [ScriptIgnore] attributes to any properties that provide a back references to an object and annoyingly every seems to work fine if i manually instantiate the poco's, i.e. they serialise to JSON fine, and the scriptignore attribute is acknowledged. However when i try and serialise an object returned from the DAL i get the circular reference exception "A circular reference was detected while serializing an object of type 'System.Data.Entity.DynamicProxies.xxxx'"
I have tried several ways of retreiving the data but they all get stuck with this error:
public JsonResult GetTimeSlot(int id) {
TimeSlotDao tsDao = new TimeSlotDao();
TimeSlot ts = tsDao.GetById(id);
return Json(ts);
}
The method below works slightly better as rather than the timeslot dynamic proxied object causing the circular refference its the appointment object.
public JsonResult GetTimeSlot(int id) {
TimeSlotDao tsDao = new TimeSlotDao();
var ts = from t in tsDao.GetQueryable()
where t.Id == id
select new {t.Id, t.StartTime, t.Available, t.Appointment};
return Json(ts);
}
Any ideas or solutions to this problem?
Update
I would prefer to use the out of the box serialiser if possible although Json.Net via nuget is ok as an alternative i would hope its possible to use it as I intended as well...
