Node.js consumption of json from Rails app - ruby-on-rails

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)

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);
});
});