What are transactions with many outputs?

[Hans0]

Most transactions have 2 output (I understand why) but what does it mean to have many outputs? Such transactions cannot be created with the standard bitcoin client (?). Why are people doing this and using what tool?

Example: http://bitcoincharts.com/bitcoin/#bafb4c5a7e3fadcedc7ca2ab507c4c6ec3d1f8ee2a7b00e676af99c13d7aeecf

(still unconfirmed)

[bitclown]

This is possible with the RPC function sendmany. It's cheaper for the sender, as it only requires one fee, and it saves network resources as opposed to sending many transactions. Some pools use sendmany to issue its rewards on the fly for every block.

[Hans0]

That makes sense. Thanks.