Passing a model with a foreign key relationship via Ajax/Json from controller to view

Question

I recently made a change to my database - I added foreign key relationships to certain tables and in doing so certain AJAX/Json calls no longer seem to accept the data I am trying to send it.

I had a model called Cars (which I could call via Ajax):

public partial class Cars
{
    public int Id { get; set; }
    public Nullable<int> WorkCenterId { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public string SerialNumber { get; set; }
}

which now has an additional element:

public partial class Cars
{
    public int Id { get; set; }
    public Nullable<int> WorkCenterId { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public string SerialNumber { get; set; }

    public virtual WorkCenter WorkCenter { get; set; }
}

so the Ajax call is this:

function GetCars() {     
        $.ajax({
            cache: false,
            url: '@Url.Action("GetCarList", "Line")',
            type: 'POST',
            success: function (data) {
                alert('it worked!');
            }
        }); 
    }

I am also using unitofwork/repository pattern BTW and this is the controller (which used to work fine):

[HttpPost]
public JsonResult GetCarList()
{
    var carlist = unitOfWork.CarRepository.Get().ToList();
    return Json(carlist);
}

No matter what I do now, I cannot get the data returned to the Ajax call (the alert does not fire). If I replace the CarRepository with another model repository that does not have any foreign key relations it will work again.

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

OK I figured it out, I cannot serialize carlist unless I convert it to a POCO.

instead of that I just followed the suggestions from this post:

What are the downsides to turning off ProxyCreationEnabled for CTP5 of EF code first

I turned ProxyCreationEnable to false.