Enum ReferenceHandling

Specifies how the serialization engine responds when it encounters the same object reference more than once while traversing an object graph, which may indicate either a legitimate shared reference or a circular reference (cycle).

Namespace: Scylla.Core.Util.Serialization

Assembly: ScyllaCore.dll

Syntax

public enum ReferenceHandling

Remarks

Configured via WithReferenceHandling(ReferenceHandling). The active mode is enforced by ReferenceTracker and consulted by the engine each time it begins serializing a reference-type value.

Fields

Name	Description
Error	Throw a SerializationException when a cyclic reference is detected. Use this policy when cycles are not expected in the object graph and their presence indicates a programming error. The failure is surfaced as a ErrorMessage in the result returned by ScyllaSerialization.
Ignore	Break cycles silently by serializing the second and subsequent occurrences of the same object reference as null. This prevents SerializationException and stack overflows caused by cycles but loses the information stored in repeated references; deserialized graphs will not share the same object instances. Use this mode when cycles must be tolerated but identity preservation is not required.
Preserve	Preserve object identity by assigning each reference-type object a unique integer ID on its first occurrence in the graph. Subsequent occurrences are serialized as a reference to that ID (e.g., { "$ref": "1" } in JSON) rather than re-serializing the object's fields. During deserialization the engine resolves references back to the original object, correctly reconstructing shared instances and breaking cycles. Use this mode for object graphs that intentionally share references or contain cycles.

See Also

SerializationSettings

WithReferenceHandling(ReferenceHandling)

ReferenceTracker