The DECC$WRITE_SHORT_RECORDS feature logical supports a previous
    change to the fwrite function (to accommodate writing records
    with size less than the maximum record size), while retaining
    the legacy way of writing records to a fixed-length file as the
    default behavior:

    With DECC$WRITE_SHORT_RECORDS enabled, short-sized records
    (records with size less than the maximum record size) written at
    EOF are padded with zeros to align records on record boundaries.
    This is the behavior seen in OpenVMS Version 7.3-1 and some ACRTL
    ECOs of that time period.

    With DECC$WRITE_SHORT_RECORDS disabled, the legacy behavior
    of writing records with no padding is implemented. This is the
    recommended and default behavior.