Telerik MVC Grid with Ajax Binding using EntityObjects gets Circular References exception

Question

I have been using Telerik MVC Grid for quite a while now and It is a great control, however, one annoying thing keeps showing up related to using the grid with Ajax Binding to o

Answer 1

I have taken a slightly different approach which I believe might be a little easier to implement.

All I do is apply an extended [Grid] attribute to the grid json returning method instead of the normal [GridAction] attribute

public class GridAttribute : GridActionAttribute, IActionFilter
  {    
    /// 

    /// Determines the depth that the serializer will traverse
    /// 
    public int SerializationDepth { get; set; } 

    /// 

    /// Initializes a new instance of the  class.
    /// 
    public GridAttribute()
      : base()
    {
      ActionParameterName = "command";
      SerializationDepth = 1;
    }

    protected override ActionResult CreateActionResult(object model)
    {    
      return new EFJsonResult
      {
       Data = model,
       JsonRequestBehavior = JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet,
       MaxSerializationDepth = SerializationDepth
      };
    }
}

and

public class EFJsonResult : JsonResult
  {
    const string JsonRequest_GetNotAllowed = "This request has been blocked because sensitive information could be disclosed to third party web sites when this is used in a GET request. To allow GET requests, set JsonRequestBehavior to AllowGet.";

    public EFJsonResult()
    {
      MaxJsonLength = 1024000000;
      RecursionLimit = 10;
      MaxSerializationDepth = 1;
    }

    public int MaxJsonLength { get; set; }
    public int RecursionLimit { get; set; }
    public int MaxSerializationDepth { get; set; }

    public override void ExecuteResult(ControllerContext context)
    {
      if (context == null)
      {
        throw new ArgumentNullException("context");
      }

      if (JsonRequestBehavior == JsonRequestBehavior.DenyGet &&
          String.Equals(context.HttpContext.Request.HttpMethod, "GET", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))
      {
        throw new InvalidOperationException(JsonRequest_GetNotAllowed);
      }

      var response = context.HttpContext.Response;

      if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(ContentType))
      {
        response.ContentType = ContentType;
      }
      else
      {
        response.ContentType = "application/json";
      }

      if (ContentEncoding != null)
      {
        response.ContentEncoding = ContentEncoding;
      }

      if (Data != null)
      {
        var serializer = new JavaScriptSerializer
        {
          MaxJsonLength = MaxJsonLength,
          RecursionLimit = RecursionLimit
        };

        serializer.RegisterConverters(new List { new EFJsonConverter(MaxSerializationDepth) });

        response.Write(serializer.Serialize(Data));
      }
    }

Combine this with my serializer Serializing Entity Framework problems and you have a simple way of avoiding circular references but also optionally serializing multiple levels (which I need)

Note: Telerik added this virtual CreateActionResult very recently for me so you may have to download the latest version (not sure but I think maybe 1.3+)