Python: httplib getresponse issues many recv() calls

Question

getresponse issues many recv calls while reading header of an HTML request. It actually issues recv for each byte which results in many system calls. How can it be optimized?

I verified on an Ubuntu machine with strace dump.

sample code:

conn = httplib.HTTPConnection("www.python.org")
conn.request("HEAD", "/index.html")
r1 = conn.getresponse()

strace dump:

sendto(3, "HEAD /index.html HTTP/1.1\r\nHost:"..., 78, 0, NULL, 0) = 78
recvfrom(3, "H", 1, 0, NULL, NULL)      = 1
recvfrom(3, "T", 1, 0, NULL, NULL)      = 1
recvfrom(3, "T", 1, 0, NULL, NULL)      = 1
recvfrom(3, "P", 1, 0, NULL, NULL)      = 1
recvfrom(3, "/", 1, 0, NULL, NULL)      = 1
...

Answer 1

r = conn.getresponse(buffering=True)

On Python 3.1+ there is no buffering parameter (it is default).