exporting surface color data from MATLAB for usage within pgfplots code

I am writing a MATLAB program that exports MATLAB plots to tikz code. One of the features that I find very useful and that I would also like to implement is the specification of the surface color. In MATLAB one would usually run the code

surfc(X,Y,Z,C)

where [X,Y]=meshgrid(x,y) are meshgrids of the vectors x,y, Z=f(X,Y) is some function of these meshgrids, and C is the surface color data. In the pgfplots manual, the author states that the data X,Y,Z can be exported using the code:

XX=X'; YY=Y'; ZZ=Z';
data = [ XX(:) YY(:) ZZ(:) ]
save P.dat data -ASCII

This can be found in the pgfplots manual on page 538. However, this export neglects the surface color data found in C. In some simulations C can be something different than the typical z-axis, e.g. C = X.*Y (Note .* is the equivalent of the Hadamard product in MATLAB). Is there a way to consider this quantity in pgfplots? If so how can it be exported and integrated into the code?

In general, my question can be divided into two parts:

1. Is there a way to export C in order to specfiy the surface color data and set the colorbar axis? Preferably some way like this:

XX=X'; YY=Y'; ZZ=Z' CC = CC';
data = [ XX(:) YY(:) ZZ(:) CC(:)]
save P.dat data -ASCII

2. Does pgfplots accepts this? If so, how can I use the exported data? (small example would be helpful)

To clarify what I mean with 2) I will provide a small example. When the data X,Y,Z are exported, one can use the code

addplot3[surf,mesh/cols=10,mesh/ordering=rowwise,shader=interp] file {P.dat};.

to plot the surf data. How does the above code line change if the color data is additionally exported?

XX=X'; YY=Y'; ZZ=Z' CC = CC';
data = [ XX(:) YY(:) ZZ(:) CC(:)]
save P.dat data -ASCII

addplot3[surf,mesh/cols=10,mesh/ordering=rowwise,shader=interp, point meta = explicit] file {P.dat};

xcol    ycol    zcol     colordata