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Octave’s cell type is also available from within oct-files.  A cell
array is just an array of octave_values, and thus each element of the
cell array can be treated just like any other octave_value.  A simple
example is
#include <octave/oct.h>
#include <octave/Cell.h>
DEFUN_DLD (celldemo, args, , "Cell Demo")
{
  if (args.length () != 1)
    print_usage ();
  Cell c = args(0).cell_value ();
  octave_value_list retval;
  retval.resize (c.numel ());    // faster code by pre-declaring size
  for (octave_idx_type i = 0; i < c.numel (); i++)
    {
      retval(i) = c(i);          // using operator syntax
      //retval(i) = c.elem (i);  // using method syntax
    }
  return retval;
}
Note that cell arrays are used less often in standard oct-files and so
the Cell.h header file must be explicitly included.  The rest of the
example extracts the octave_values one by one from the cell array and
returns them as individual return arguments.  For example:
[b1, b2, b3] = celldemo ({1, [1, 2], "test"})
⇒
b1 =  1
b2 =
   1   2
b3 = test