CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#asp.net-mvc-3entity-frameworkserialization
Titouan D.
Titouan D.

Reputation: 476

Serializing object with virtual properties using another lighter object

I have got a class which has many virtual properties lazy loaded

public class TestPlan
{
    public virtual ICollection<Test> Test { get; set; }
    public virtual Commercial Commercial { get; set; }
    ...
}

and this class has to be serialized later in the program. The thing is, as those properties are virtual I've got an error (circular reference) everytime I try to serialize it. Now here is my question:

My boss told me to use what he calls View Object which is the same object but without the unused properties. What do you think of this? Should I set those unused properties to null or something?

Background:

The serialized object is meant to be used in an infragistics grid (a nice array). I've already tried using the [ScriptIgnore] attribute on my virtuals but it didn't worked.

I also tried retrieving my TestPlans as database.TestPlans.AsNoTracking().ToList() but got an error (When an object is returned with a NoTracking merge option, Load can only be called when the EntityCollection or EntityReference does not contain objects.)

Thanks in advance

Upvotes: 2

Views: 3460

Answers (1)

sanosdole
sanosdole

Reputation: 2489

If your Boss means a DataTransferObject with View Object he seems to be going in the right direction. This is sometimes also called a ViewModel object in ASP. This is just a plain POCO representing a flattened Version of your Model Objects (some use AutoMapper for the flattening)

You should not modify your model objects but instead create a new object (possibly flattened) for the purpose of serialization. This object has no behaviour just data and represents the contract for serialization.

I cannot see a circular reference from your example code, but if you want i may give you an unrelated code example that shows how to resolve circular references by flattening. (Difficult to do without knowing the model)

Upvotes: 1

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