Issue 3430: httplib.HTTPResponse documentations inconsistent (original) (raw)

The library reference documentation of httplib.HTTPResponse does not match up with the online help documentation, or with the dir() information of a particular instance.

E.g. the list of public features in the library reference (http://docs.python.org/lib/httpresponse-objects.html) is:

• read
• getheader
• getheaders
• msg
• version
• status
• reason

From the online documentation (with 'help(httplib.HTTPResponse)'):

• begin
• close
• getheader
• getheaders
• isclosed
• read

And from a class instance (via 'dir(httpResponseInstance)'):

• 'begin',
• 'chunk_left',
• 'chunked',
• 'close',
• 'debuglevel',
• 'fp',
• 'getheader',
• 'getheaders',
• 'isclosed',
• 'length',
• 'msg',
• 'read',
• 'reason',
• 'status',
• 'strict',
• 'version',
• 'will_close'

Still applies. Neither the 2.7 documentation has changed (judging from the current online dev docs), nor the implementation (judging from current svn). So my first two lists are still valid. I cannot comment on the third, as I don't have a 2.7 installation at hand, or will have any time soon.

Docs are still as deficient in 3.3, and so I presume in 3.4.

Part of the discrepancy between the first two lists is that data attributes msg, version, status, and reason are instance-only attributes.

#19154 is (now) about improving fileno doc. That, some other methods, are missing doctrings, making help(method) useless.

A big change in 3.x is that HTTPResponse now subclasses io.RawIOBase and hence inherits or implements even more (undocumented) methods than listed here. I suppose they could be documented by reference to the base class, if that is the normal procedure when subclassing.