Try to use JSON. PHP function json_encode()

EDIT: Code example(server side - PHP):

  // data handling
  $arrayToSend = array(array('name'=>'Most Recent', 'view'=>'recentView'),
                       array('name'=>'Most Popular', 'view'=>'popularView'),
                       array('name'=>'Staff Picks', 'view'=>'staffView'));

  echo json_encode($arrayToSend);

Client side(javascript). Note: YUI is used to show client-side handling:

var callback = {success: function(req) {
                            selectItems(req.responseText);
                         }
                };
YAHOO.util.Connect.asyncRequest('GET',url + '?param=1',callback);

function selectItems(resp) {

  var result = eval('(' + resp + ')');

  for (var i=0; i < result.length; i++) {
    // Do whatever you want with array result :)
  }
}

Comments: 1) In PHP script you have to make response, which outputs your array, previously encoded to JSON format. 2) Except YUI you can also use any appropriate JavaScript library to generate AJAX request(i.e. JQuery, Prototype). In my case, I used function eval() to make array from JSON response.

Hope, it'll help you.

json_encode() example:

<?php
$data = array('name' => 'Imran', 'age' => 23);
echo json_encode($data);
?>

outputs

{ 'name': 'Imran', 'age': 23 }