writing data to files

Hi,

I am in the process of debugging a UMAT.  In my UMAT code I am currently using write statements to output certain variables to the dat file.  I was wondering if there are any other ways to output data during the execution of a job.  Is it possible to print/plot variables, for example using Matlab (maybe even realtime)?

Also, has anyone experience in accessing the fill files (e.g converting them to ASCII and then use Matlab to look at data?).

Thanks,

Andreas