Handling Circular References in Entity Framework Core with C# - StackOverflowException
I'm stuck trying to I'm working with a `StackOverflowException` when trying to serialize entities that have circular references in my Entity Framework Core 6 application. I have a `Customer` entity that has a collection of `Orders`, and each `Order` has a reference back to the `Customer`. When I attempt to return a list of customers in my Web API, the serialization process fails due to this circular reference. Here's the relevant part of my code: ```csharp public class Customer { public int Id { get; set; } public string Name { get; set; } public virtual ICollection<Order> Orders { get; set; } } public class Order { public int Id { get; set; } public decimal TotalAmount { get; set; } public virtual Customer Customer { get; set; } } ``` In my controller, I'm trying to return a list of customers: ```csharp [HttpGet] public IActionResult GetCustomers() { var customers = _context.Customers.Include(c => c.Orders).ToList(); return Ok(customers); } ``` I have tried using `[JsonIgnore]` attribute on the `Customer` navigation property in the `Order` class but it still leads to infinite recursion. I also tried to configure the JSON serialization options globally in my `Startup.cs` with: ```csharp services.AddControllers().AddJsonOptions(options => { options.JsonSerializerOptions.ReferenceHandler = ReferenceHandler.Preserve; }); ``` However, I still run into the same scenario. Any suggestions on how to handle this serialization question effectively without running into a `StackOverflowException`? I would appreciate any guidance on best practices for managing circular references in EF Core. This is for a microservice running on macOS. What are your experiences with this?