5. A method as claimed in claim 4 further comprising the steps of: 5) creating a Support File corresponding to an Include File when the Include File initially created; 6) updating Support Files in response to screen based commands including copy, rename, delete, and move commands to maintain consistency; 7) synchronizing, at the end of an edit session, a Support File corresponding to the selected Include File to correspond to a latest version of the selected Include File.
4. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the selected data item is parsed before validating against the logical definitions of the DED and the step of storing cross-reference information further comprises the step of: storing additional support information transparently in the Support File, the additional support information including header information including description, type, language, change date, type and reason, and a cross-reference to each program that currently uses the selected Include File.