Question

recently I have set up a WCF restful service with EF4.
It all worked out when returning XML format response. however when it comes to JSON, I got 504 Error. unable to return json data, WCF Resful Service .NET 4.0

By digging deeper by using Service Trace Viewer:
I found this error:

‘The type ‘xxx.DataEntity.AppView’
cannot be serialized to JSON because
its IsReference setting is ‘True’. The
JSON format does not support
references because there is no
standardized format for representing
references. To enable serialization,
disable the IsReference setting on the
type or an appropriate parent class of
the type.’

The “AppView” is a complex object class which generated by EF4 from a store procedure.
I spend quite a bit time google how to disable the IsReference, very little result so far.

anyone? with any solutions?

thanks in advance

Code:

[OperationContract]
        [WebInvoke(Method = "GET",
            BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.Wrapped,
            UriTemplate = "App/{id}/{format}")]
        AppView FuncDetail(string id, string format);



public AppView FuncDetail(string id, string format)
        {
            SetResponseFormat(format);
            return AppSvcs.GetById(id);
        }


private void SetResponseFormat(string format)
            {
                if (format.ToLower() == "json")
                {
                    ResponseContext.Format = WebMessageFormat.Json;
                }
                else
                {
                    ResponseContext.Format = WebMessageFormat.Xml;
                }
            }

Answer 1

I ran into exactly the same issue. It only happened on one of my service methods where I was trying to return JSON serialised Entity objects. For all my other methods I was returning JSON serialised data transfer objects (DTOs), which are stand-alone and not connected to the Entity framework. I am using DTOs for data posted into methods. Often, the data you send out does not need all the data you store in the model or the database e.g. ID values, updated dates, etc. The mapping is done in the model class, like so:

public partial class Location
{

    public static LocationDto CreateLocationDto(Location location)
    {
        LocationDto dto = new LocationDto
        {
            Accuracy = location.Accuracy,
            Altitude = location.Altitude,
            Bearing = location.Bearing                
        };
        return dto;
    }

It may seem a bit clunky but it works and it ensures that you only send the data fields you intended to send back. It works for me because I only have 5 or 6 entities but I can see that it would get a bit tedious if you have lots of classes.