Sorry my bad....I meant I am passing things like this from my perl
client

print $seperator;
$name   = "SendArrayList";
$params = {newList => [1,'index'] };
$xpath  = "";
@ret = $test->ExecSoapMethod($name, $params, $xpath);
print Dumper($ret[1]), "\n";

the .Net webmethod is:
[WebMethod]
    public string SendArrayList(ArrayList newList)
     {
        if (newList==null)
           return "Null List!";
        StringBuilder sb=new StringBuilder();
        ArrayList list = new ArrayList();
        IEnumerator enumList = newList.GetEnumerator();
        while(enumList.MoveNext())
        {
           list.Add(enumList.Current.ToString());
           sb.Append(enumList.Current.ToString());
        }

        return sb.ToString();
     }

But it always returns an empty string the...arrayList if always
empty....WHY????