Communicate between a Rails app and a Node.js app

Question

This question follows a previous one: Shall I use Node.js Instead of Rails for Real-time WebApps?

The question:

What\'s the best way of communic

Answer 1

Why not open a TCP socket for communication between node & RoR ?

var net = require('net');

// create TCP server
var server = net.createServer(function (socket) {
  // write down socket
  socket.write("Echo server\r\n");
  socket.pipe(socket);
})

// start server listening on port 8124
server.listen(8124, "127.0.0.1");

And in RoR you can connect to the socket

require 'socket'      # Sockets are in standard library

hostname = '127.0.0.1'
port = 8124

s = TCPSocket.open(hostname, port)

while line = s.gets   # Read lines from the socket
  puts line.chop      # And print with platform line terminator
end
s.close               # Close the socket when done

Then just write an abstraction on top of this TCP socket to synchronize your communication nicely and without requiring low level fiddling.