- the size of the list is known when you create a stack frame, as in c:

    int xs[n] = {0};

- the list is built on a stack that isn't the one you have to pop your return address off of; examples include perl's data stack, ada's secondary stack, forth's operand stack, forth's dictionary, or an mlkit region. in these cases you can even return the dynamically built structure to a caller;

- each new callee adds some fixed number of items to a linked list, such as, in c

    void with_fill(color *c, 
        env *e, 
        void (*cb)(void*, env*), 
        void *userdata)
    {
      env ne = {
        .prop = PROP_FILL_COLOR,
        .val = c,
        .parent = e };
      cb(userdata, &ne);
    }