c# - Empty data being returned by entity using webapi -

i have following entity

people --------- people_id report_id last_name first_name ---------- navigation properties  people1      people2 people_location 

context class

 public partial class mypeople : dbcontext     {         public mypeople()             : base("name=mypeople")         {             base.configuration.proxycreationenabled = false;         }          protected override void onmodelcreating(dbmodelbuilder modelbuilder)         {             throw new unintentionalcodefirstexception();         }          public dbset<people_location> project_status { get; set; }         public dbset<people> people { get; set; }     } } 

model class generated ef

---

 [datacontract(isreference = false)]     [serializable]     public partial class person     {         public people()         {             this.people1 = new hashset<person>();             this.project_discussion = new hashset<people_location>();         }          public int people_id { get; set; }         public nullable<int> report_id { get; set; }         public string last_name { get; set; }         public string first_name { get; set; }          public virtual icollection<people> people1 { get; set; }         public virtual people people2 { get; set; }         public virtual icollection<people_location> people_location { get; set; }     } } 

in web api controller

// api/personloc  public list<people> getpeople()     {         return db.people.asenumerable().tolist();     } 

when run api make sure working

../api/personloc/ 

i bunch of empty records

[   {},   {},   {},   {} ] 

i believe issue decoration of

[datacontract(isreference = false)]     [serializable] 

when remove class following exception

the 'objectcontent`1' type failed serialize response body content type 'application/json; charset=utf-8'.</exceptionmessage>system.invalidoperationexception</exceptiontype>an error has occurred.</message>object graph type 'cmeapp.entities.person' contains cycles , cannot serialized if reference tracking disabled.</exceptionmessage>

please let me know how fix it.

you seem have circular dependency. need mark isreference true in person datacontract follows,

 [datacontract(isreference = true)]     [serializable]     public partial class person 

you can further information isrefernce attribute msdn. there similar stackoverflow thread here