Methods and apparatus are disclosed for determining if a user-defined software function is a memory allocation function during compile-time. The methods and apparatus determine if a user-defined function returns a new memory object every time the user-defined function is invoked. In addition, the methods and apparatus determine if the memory objects created by the user-defined function are available outside the scope of the user defined function. If the user-defined function returns a new memory object every time the user-defined function is invoked, and the memory objects created by the user-defined function are not available outside the scope of the user defined function, then the user-defined function is determined to be a memory allocation function. Otherwise, the user-defined function is determined to be a non-memory allocation function.