LINQ to SQL outputting different than intended, how to resolve? - sql

Question

Background on the project:
DB and site hosted on Azure, developing in VS 2015.
I am trying to display all rows for all entries in one of my tables and the output I am getting is different than what I was expecting. I am not sure if it is because of my coding or because of how the table was created or for some other reason I'm not thinking of so any help is appreciated.
Here is my code to pull it from DB(in a file named EmployeesRepository):
public static List<Employee> GetAllEmployees()
{
return dataContext.Employees.ToList();
}
Here is my code to send that data to a controller(in a file named EmployeesController):
[Route("api/employees")]
public HttpResponseMessage Get()
{
var employees = EmployeesRepository.GetAllEmployees();
HttpResponseMessage response = Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK, employees);
return response;
}
and here is the angular code to write it out(in my employees.html file):
<table class="table table-striped table-hover" style="width:100%">
<thead>
<tr class="info">
<th ng-click="doSort('username')">Username</th>
<th ng-click="doSort('firstName')">First Name</th>
<th ng-click="doSort('lastName')">Last Name</th>
<th ng-click="doSort('ext')">Extension</th>
<th ng-click="doSort('location')">Location</th>
<th ng-click="doSort('jobtitle')">Job Title</th>
<th> </th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr ng-repeat="Employee in Employees | filter:textFilter | orderBy:sortBy:reverse">
<td>{{ Employee.username }}</td>
<td>{{ Employee.firstName }}</td>
<td>{{ Employee.lastName }}</td>
<td>{{ Employee.ext }}</td>
<td>{{ Employee.location }}</td>
<td>{{ Employee.jobtitle }}</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
What it seems to be doing is pulling all foreign keys and creating references for the rest of the data, and angular doesn't know how to output the references. I will provide the JSON output i grabbed from POSTman so you can see whats its doing. The angular correctly identifies 6 objects in my table, and allots 6 rows for the data, but only the first record is displayed, the rest are just blank spaces. Any suggestions as to why its doing this?
[
{
"$id": "1",
"location1": {
"$id": "2",
"employees": [
{
"$ref": "1"
},
{
"$id": "3",
"location1": {
"$ref": "2"
},
"equipments": [
{
"$id": "4",
"employee": {
"$ref": "3"
},
"tickets": [
{
"$id": "5",
"employee": {
"$ref": "3"
},
"employee1": {
"$id": "6",
"location1": {
"$id": "7",
"employees": [
{
"$ref": "6"
}
],
"id": 1,
"locName": "Prime BR Clinic",
"addrss": "1481 Airline Hwy",
"phoneNum": "225-778-0000"
},
"equipments": [],
"tickets": [],
"tickets1": [
{
"$ref": "5"
},
{
"$id": "8",
"employee": {
"$ref": "3"
},
"employee1": {
"$ref": "6"
},
"equipment": {
"$id": "9",
"employee": {
"$ref": "1"
},
"tickets": [
{
"$ref": "8"
}
],
"barcode": "PTR-000000001",
"condition": "InUse",
"assignedTo": "ebeyj",
"notes": "Runs very slow.",
"configDate": "1905-07-03T00:00:00"
},
"id": 3,
"title": "Fake Ticket",
"customer": "landrya",
"barcode": "PTR-000000001",
"assignedTo": "hofmannr",
"category": "Installation",
"importance": "low",
"openDate": "1905-06-05T00:00:00",
"dueDate": "1905-06-05T00:00:00",
"closedDate": "1905-06-05T00:00:00",
"comments": " ",
"condition": "Closed",
"workHours": 99
}
],
"username": "landrya",
"email": "landrya#*****.com",
"lastName": "Landry",
"firstName": "Ashley",
"ext": 4300,
"location": 1,
"jobtitle": "HR Rep"
},
"equipment": {
"$ref": "4"
},
"id": 0,
"title": "Fake Ticket",
"customer": "landrya",
"barcode": "COM-000000001",
"assignedTo": "hofmannr",
"category": "TroubleShoot",
"importance": "low",
"openDate": "1905-06-05T00:00:00",
"dueDate": "1905-06-05T00:00:00",
"closedDate": "1905-06-05T00:00:00",
"comments": "VPNs are a piece of SSH IT",
"condition": "Closed",
"workHours": 99
}
],
"barcode": "COM-000000001",
"condition": "InUse",
"assignedTo": "hofmannr",
"notes": null,
"configDate": "1905-06-20T00:00:00"
}
],
"tickets": [
{
"$ref": "5"
},
{
"$ref": "8"
}
],
"tickets1": [],
"username": "hofmannr",
"email": "hofmannr#******.com",
"lastName": "Hofmann",
"firstName": "Ritchie",
"ext": 5002,
"location": 0,
"jobtitle": "IT GURU"
},
{
"$id": "10",
"location1": {
"$ref": "2"
},
"equipments": [
{
"$id": "11",
"employee": {
"$ref": "10"
},
"tickets": [
{
"$id": "12",
"employee": {
"$ref": "1"
},
"employee1": {
"$ref": "10"
},
"equipment": {
"$ref": "11"
},
"id": 2,
"title": "Imaginary Ticket",
"customer": "mcmorrisv",
"barcode": "MON-000000001",
"assignedTo": "ebeyj",
"category": "TroubleShoot",
"importance": "mid",
"openDate": "1905-06-20T00:00:00",
"dueDate": "1905-06-15T00:00:00",
"closedDate": null,
"comments": null,
"condition": "Open",
"workHours": 0
}
],
"barcode": "MON-000000001",
"condition": "Terminated",
"assignedTo": "mcmorrisv",
"notes": null,
"configDate": "1905-06-17T00:00:00"
}
],
"tickets": [],
"tickets1": [
{
"$ref": "12"
}
],
"username": "mcmorrisv",
"email": "mcmorrisv#******.com",
"lastName": "McMorris",
"firstName": "Vivian",
"ext": 4200,
"location": 0,
"jobtitle": "I am sure she does something around here."
},
{
"$id": "13",
"location1": {
"$ref": "2"
},
"equipments": [],
"tickets": [],
"tickets1": [
{
"$id": "14",
"employee": {
"$id": "15",
"location1": {
"$ref": "2"
},
"equipments": [],
"tickets": [
{
"$ref": "14"
}
],
"tickets1": [],
"username": "xier",
"email": "xier#******.com",
"lastName": "Xie",
"firstName": "Richard",
"ext": 5000,
"location": 0,
"jobtitle": "IT Paladin"
},
"employee1": {
"$ref": "13"
},
"equipment": {
"$id": "16",
"employee": null,
"tickets": [
{
"$ref": "14"
}
],
"barcode": "COM-000000002",
"condition": "StandBy",
"assignedTo": null,
"notes": null,
"configDate": "1905-07-07T00:00:00"
},
"id": 1,
"title": "Pseudo-Ticket",
"customer": "pans",
"barcode": "COM-000000002",
"assignedTo": "xier",
"category": "Special Request",
"importance": "high",
"openDate": "1926-11-02T00:00:00",
"dueDate": "1926-11-02T00:00:00",
"closedDate": null,
"comments": "Developer accused of undocumented code refuses to cmnt",
"condition": "Open",
"workHours": -1
}
],
"username": "pans",
"email": "pans#******.com",
"lastName": "Pan",
"firstName": "Sharon",
"ext": 4100,
"location": 0,
"jobtitle": "Accounts Payable Manager"
},
{
"$ref": "15"
}
],
"id": 0,
"locName": "Prime Corp",
"addrss": "1481 Airline Hwy",
"phoneNum": "225-408-0000"
},
"equipments": [
{
"$ref": "9"
}
],
"tickets": [
{
"$ref": "12"
}
],
"tickets1": [],
"username": "ebeyj",
"email": "ebeyj#******.com",
"lastName": "Ebey",
"firstName": "Joseph",
"ext": 5001,
"location": 0,
"jobtitle": "IT Jedi"
},
{
"$ref": "3"
},
{
"$ref": "6"
},
{
"$ref": "10"
},
{
"$ref": "13"
},
{
"$ref": "15"
}
]

Answer 1

The issue arises because you have shared objects (or potentially shared objects), and then are serializing them to JSON. This article explains it in detail: http://www.asp.net/web-api/overview/formats-and-model-binding/json-and-xml-serialization.
You should also read: Using JavaScript to deserialize references in a complex object graph from SignalR/Json.NET