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'

Docs have been considerably updated since 2.5. Please check if this still applies to the 2.7 docs

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.

Yes, I know httplib documentation needs improvement. There is a great deal of documentation in the module itself. A lot can be .rst'ifed.

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.