diff --git a/lib/puppet/util/rails/reference_serializer.rb b/lib/puppet/util/rails/reference_serializer.rb
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..8c4f1aaff
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lib/puppet/util/rails/reference_serializer.rb
@@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
+
+module Puppet::Util::ReferenceSerializer
+    def unserialize_value(val)
+        if val =~ /^--- [!:]/
+            YAML.load(val)
+        else
+            val
+        end
+    end
+
+    def serialize_value(val)
+        if val.is_a?(Puppet::Parser::Resource::Reference)
+            YAML.dump(val)
+        else
+            val
+        end
+    end
+end
\ No newline at end of file