Node.js consumption of json from Rails app

Question

I have a json string (coming from my Rails app):

http://localhost:3000/employees/1.json

How do I get my Node.js app to consume this data?

This is the code I have in my Node.js app right now:

var employees = JSON.parse("http://localhost:3000/employees.json")

This is the error I'm getting:

prompt$ node app.js
node.js:201
 throw e; // process.nextTick error, or 'error' event on first tick
 ^
SyntaxError: Unexpected token h
 - at Object.parse (native)
 - at Object. (/Documents/Coding/dustin/employees.js:19:22)
 - at Module._compile (module.js:441:26)
 - at Object..js (module.js:459:10)
 - at Module.load (module.js:348:31)
 - at Function._load (module.js:308:12)
 - at Module.require (module.js:354:17)
 - at require (module.js:370:17)
 - at Object. (/Documents/Coding/dustin/app.js:34:17)
 - at Module._compile (module.js:441:26)

• miku: possible duplicate of Node.js: Parse JSON object
• RyanWilcox: If you visit localhost:3000/employees.json in your browser, do you get JSON in your browser or do you get an error?
• hagope: You've got some syntax error on line 19 of employees.js
• rzv: Ryan, if I visit that in my browser I get JSON.

Answer 1

See this question:

Using Node.JS, how do I read a JSON object into (server) memory?

You should read the file first and then parse it.

var employees = JSON.parse(fs.readFileSync('employees.json', 'utf8'));

If for some reason your Rails app runs on some other machine, you need to make a http request for that. You could try this:

var site = http.createClient(port, host);
var request = site.request("GET", pathname, {'host' : host});
request.end();
request.on('response', function(response) {
 var json = '';
 response.on('data', function(chunk) {
 json += chunk;
 });
 response.on('end', function () {
 employees = JSON.parse(json);
 });
});

• rzv: Okay, here is what confused me. The ('employees.json', 'utf8') part...I don't have a JSON file, I have a JSON string that can be accessed here: localhost:3000/employees/1.json
• mihai: ok that means you have to communicate with your rails app with a http request, like I mentioned in the second approach.