Web API 2 related entities

Question

I have order and orderproducts entites.

I then have the following viewmodel...

public class orders
{
    [Key]
    public int orderid { get; set; }
    public int userid { get; set; }
    public System.DateTime createdate { get; set; }
    public string orderstatus { get; set; }

    public virtual ICollection<orderproduct> orderproducts { get; set; }
}

public class orderproducts
{
    [Key]
    public int orderproductid { get; set; }
    public int productid { get; set; }
    public int orderid { get; set; }

    public virtual order order { get; set; }
    public virtual product product { get; set; }
}

and db context...

namespace salesWebTest.DAL
{
public class nviewContext : DbContext
{
public nviewContext() : base()
    {
        Configuration.LazyLoadingEnabled = true;
    }

    public nviewContext(string Connection) : base(Connection)
    {
        Configuration.LazyLoadingEnabled = true;
    }


    public DbSet<salesWebTest.viewModel.orders> orders { get; set; }
    public DbSet<salesWebTest.viewModel.orderproducts> orderproducts { get; set; }

    protected override void OnModelCreating(DbModelBuilder modelBuilder)
    {
        base.OnModelCreating(modelBuilder);
        modelBuilder.Conventions.Remove<PluralizingTableNameConvention>();
    }
}
} 

I am using the following action to return JSON...

public IQueryable<orders> Getorders()
    {
        IQueryable<orders> o = db.orders;
        return o;
    }

I get the error "The 'ObjectContent`1' type failed to serialize the response body for content type"

I've added the following to my global.asax...

GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters.JsonFormatter.SerializerSettings.ReferenceLoopHandling = Newtonsoft.Json.ReferenceLoopHandling.Ignore;
        GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters.Remove(GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters.XmlFormatter);

If I remove the orderproducts entity from my viewmodel and data context, orders returns succesfully.

Any ideas on why the related entity is causing the serialization issue?

Answer 1

Try disabling the lazyload and if you dont want to disable the lazyload instead of returning entities from database create your own Model class to return the data.