writing functions that accept arrays/(matrcies?)

[Christopher Harvey]

Hello list,
I'm pretty new to octave and I have a few questions. 

I'll try to keep them in list form as much as possible.

Are ranges, arrays and matrices the same thing in octave? (ie the same data 
type?)

If I write a function that accepts arrays (ranges?) like sin([1:10]) how can I 
check to make sure that it's not a matrix that's actually passed in?
How do other built in functions handle this in octave?

I would like to write a function that can accept and produce arrays, can I get 
a template that can do this? ie: myFunction([1:10], 1, 2, 3)
that returns [x1, x2, x3....... x10]

thanks for clearing this up,
Chris.