Transfering values from a REST API response into a list for later use

If I understand correctly, you have something that ends up being a map or an array of values, and need to store that. I ran into similar issues where when writing to a properties file or to a data source, the map/array of objects is treated as a string instead of a collection of values.

Unfortunately, without going the route you mentioned where you create X properties for X values, there's no real easy way to do it. You will either have to do that storing the data, or do that in re-hydrating the data.