how to remove $id during JSON serialization

Question

I am using NewtonSoft.JSON. When running

JsonConvert.SerializeObject(myObject)

it is adding an

Answer 1

To remove the $id in JSON for my web API. I included [JsonObject(IsReference = false)] for my class objects and [JsonProperty(IsReference = false)] for my properties that are of object types. In my case the RespObj property is generic Type T and could take any object type I pass to it including collections so I had to use [JsonProperty(IsReference = false)] to get rid of the $id in the serialized JSON string.

I did not change my WebApiConfig because I was using the MVC help page for WEB API and it required me to have this configuration in my webApiconfig:

var json = GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters.JsonFormatter;
        json.SerializerSettings.PreserveReferencesHandling = Newtonsoft.Json.PreserveReferencesHandling.All;
        json.SerializerSettings.ReferenceLoopHandling = Newtonsoft.Json.ReferenceLoopHandling.Serialize;

The class object

[DataContract(IsReference = true)]
[JsonObject(IsReference = false)]
public class QMResponse<T> where T : new()
{
    public QMResponse()
    {

    }

    /// <summary>
    /// The response code
    /// </summary> 
    public string RespCode { get; set; }

    /// <summary>
    /// The response message
    /// </summary> 
    public string RespMxg { get; set; }

    /// <summary>
    /// The exception message
    /// </summary> 
    public string exception { get; set; }

    /// <summary>
    /// The object type returned
    /// </summary>         
    [JsonProperty(IsReference = false)]
    public T RespObj { get; set; }

    /// <summary>
    /// No of records returned
    /// </summary> 
    public long RecordCount { get; set; }

    /// <summary>
    /// The Session Object
    /// </summary> 
    public string session_id { get; set; }

}

Answer 2

I added this code to my WebApiConfig register method and I got rid of all $id in JSON.

var json = config.Formatters.JsonFormatter;
json.SerializerSettings.PreserveReferencesHandling = Newtonsoft.Json.PreserveReferencesHandling.None;

Answer 3

You can keep the basic configuration:

Newtonsoft.Json.PreserveReferencesHandling.All;

I used this code format for my methods

public JsonResult<T> Get()
{
    return Json(result);
} 

It works fine for me.

Answer 4

The custom ContractResolver setting overrides the PreserveReferencesHandling setting.

In your implementation of DefaultContractResolver/IContractResolver, add this;

public override JsonContract ResolveContract(Type type) {
    var contract = base.ResolveContract(type);
    contract.IsReference = false;
    return contract;
}

This behaves similarly to the PreserveReferencesHandling.None setting without a custom ContractResolver

Answer 5

In case 'id' is a property of your class then apply [JsonIgnore] attribute on it. Otherwise probably here is the answer for your question:

http://james.newtonking.com/json/help/index.html?topic=html/PreserveObjectReferences.htm

Answer 6

If for some reason you're using a custom ContractResolver, take a look at this other stack overflow;

Json.Net adding $id to EF objects despite setting PreserveReferencesHandling to "None"