Abstract: A system and method of incrementally coupling a high level language into an object file is disclosed. A source file and an object file are organized into logical blocks. An intermediate file, termed an .mdt file, is generated and stores information about the logical blocks in both the source file and the object file and their relationship to each other. Boundaries are established in the source program to define logical blocks within it, each block being termed a function. Each function is further divided into a global region and a local region. If a change has been made in a particular local region in the source file, only that region is recompiled. The recompiled portion of the .obj file is patched into the .obj file to replace the previous material corresponding to that region. Significant time savings is realized by incrementally compiling the source program because only those local regions which have been changed are recompiled and they are patched into the existing .obj file.