prevent property from being serialized in web API

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ASP.NET Web API uses Json.Net as default formatter, so if your application just only uses JSON as data format, you can use [JsonIgnore] to ignore property for serialization:

public class Foo
{
    public int Id { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }

    [JsonIgnore]
    public List<Something> Somethings { get; set; }
}

But, this way does not support XML format. So, in case your application has to support XML format more (or only support XML), instead of using Json.Net, you should use [DataContract] which supports both JSON and XML:

[DataContract]
public class Foo
{
    [DataMember]
    public int Id { get; set; }
    [DataMember]
    public string Name { get; set; }

    //Ignore by default
    public List<Something> Somethings { get; set; }
}

For more understanding, you can read the official article.

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