serialize and deserialize self reference object in c#

Question

I have a class A like this

class A
    {
        public string Type { get; set; }
        public object[] Content { get; set; }
        public string[] jsonContent { get; set; }

        public A()
        {

        }

        public A(string type)
        {
            this.Type = type;
        }

        public A(string type, object[] content)
        {
            this.Type = type;
            this.Content = content;
        }

        public string ToJson()
        {
        int len = Content.Length;
        string[] jsonContentTmp = new string[len];
        for (int i = 0; i < Content.Length; ++i)
        {
            jsonContentTmp[i] = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(Content[i]);
        }
        jsonContent = jsonContentTmp;
        var json = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(this);
        return json;
        }

        public static A ToA(string str)
        {
        Request a = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<A>(str);
        return a;
        }
    }

Consider bellow:

A sub1 = new A();
A sub2 = new A();
object[] obj = {sub1, sub2};
A test = new A("type", obj);

When I want to serialize test , I receive exception

self reference

I tried PreserveReferencesHandling but i couldn't deserialize and receive exception

'cannot preserve reference toarray'

. Any idea to serialize and deserialize it?

Answer 1

So it seems this is done on purpose to prevent Stackoverflow exceptions. No pun intended. You have to turn PreserveReferences on, to enable self referencing:

Serialising Circular references

In your AppStart in Global.asax try the following:

var jsonSerializerSettings = new JsonSerializerSettings
{
    PreserveReferencesHandling = PreserveReferencesHandling.Objects
};

GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters.Clear();
GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters.Add(new JsonNetFormatter(jsonSerializerSettings));