This is a semi-regression caused by the iostreams change. Prior to
iostreams, HTTP headers were written to a FILE handle using fprintf.
Then the body was written using a call to fwrite(). Because of internal
buffering, the result was that the HTTP headers and body would be sent
out in a single write to the socket.
With the change to iostreams, the HTTP headers are written using
ast_iostream_printf(), which under the hood calls write(). The HTTP body
calls ast_iostream_write(), which also calls write() under the hood.
This results in two separate writes to the socket.
Most HTTP client libraries out there will handle this change just fine.
However, a few of our testsuite tests started failing because of the
change. As a result, in order to reduce frustration for users, this
change alters the HTTP code to write the headers and body in a single
write operation.