here's another question that I have:

I'd like a small bit of clarification about the gettx / getrawtransaction (decoded) api call. I understand that I can find the address that a transaction output is directed at / available to for future use sits in the vout array in the scriptPubKey.addresses array. I'm a little uncertain as to why that piece of information would be typed as an array when all it ever seems to contain is one (not more, not less) address(es).

Are there any cases of transactions right now that don't contain exactly 1 item in that array, i.e. more or less than a single address (per single vout element, not per tx)? Or is the thinking behind this array to somehow make the data structure more extensible for potential future use? But then I can't think of any use cases where it appears to make any sense to put more than 1 address there...

Or am I even asking the wrong questions? For spending those coins, i.e. using them in a future transaction it's all about owning the public/private key that is contained in the vout script, right? So the address doesn't really matter and it could be 2 or more (or none at all?) addresses in there, and what matters is just that the next guy has the key to spending those coins... ?

Once again I'm coming to these questions from a project where I'm trying to calculate unspent outputs and from that balances for all accounts and I'm not sure yet what other special cases there might be in the blockchain that I need to be aware of and handle properly in order to (re-)produce accurate data!

Thanks for your help, much appreciated!

- Denis