Of course, returning an array as a serialised
Java object is only good for Java clients... if there's any possibility that a client might be something else (some other thin desktop client, or even a PHP or Perl script), you would have to find some language-neutral way to return an array (which could be either a new binary format, or some string format [e.g. comma- or space-delimited] if it's a string array you're returning).
Charles Lyons (SCJP 1.4, April 2003; SCJP 5, Dec 2006; SCWCD 1.4b, April 2004)
Author of OCEJWCD Study Companion for Oracle Exam 1Z0-899 (ISBN 0955160340 / Amazon Amazon UK )