Static allocation of opaque data types

You can use the _alloca function. I believe that it’s not exactly Standard, but as far as I know, nearly all common compilers implement it. When you use it as a default argument, it allocates off the caller’s stack.

// Header
typedef struct {} something;
int get_size();
something* create_something(void* mem);

// Usage
handle* ptr = create_something(_alloca(get_size()); // or define a macro.

// Implementation
int get_size() {
    return sizeof(real_handle_type);
}
something* create_something(void* mem) {
    real_type* ptr = (real_type_ptr*)mem;
    // Fill out real_type
    return (something*)mem;
}

You could also use some kind of object pool semi-heap – if you have a maximum number of currently available objects, then you could allocate all memory for them statically, and just bit-shift for which ones are currently in use.

#define MAX_OBJECTS 32
real_type objects[MAX_OBJECTS];
unsigned int in_use; // Make sure this is large enough
something* create_something() {
     for(int i = 0; i < MAX_OBJECTS; i++) {
         if (!(in_use & (1 << i))) {
             in_use &= (1 << i);
             return &objects[i];
         }
     }
     return NULL;
}

My bit-shifting is a little off, been a long time since I’ve done it, but I hope that you get the point.