redditParser.js

var http = require('http');
var events = require('events');
var sys = require('util');
///     redditParser
//  `
function RedditParser() {
   if(false === (this instanceof RedditParser)) {
      return new RedditParser();
   }
   events.EventEmitter.call(this)
}
sys.inherits(RedditParser, events.EventEmitter);
//eventEmitter.on('someOccurence', function(message){
//        console.log(message);
//});
//
//

//eventEmitter.emit('someOccurence', 'Something happened!');

///     grabComments
//          @string username: username for the user whose comments are pulled
//          @string last: identity of last returned comment
//                      useful for recursive calls
RedditParser.prototype.grabComments = function grabComments(username, last)
{
    //last = (last) ? last : '';//sets last if not provided to the empty string
    var self = this;
    var options = {
        host: 'www.reddit.com',
        port: 80,
        path: '/user/'+username+'/comments/.json?after='+last
    }
    console.log("... processing "+username);
    http.get(options, function  (res) {
       // console.log("reddit res: " + res.statusCode);

        var resJSON = ''; //stores the comment JSON stream given in the res
        res.on('data',  function (chunk) {
            resJSON+=chunk;
        })
        res.on('end', function () {

            var obJSON = (JSON.parse(resJSON));

            if (obJSON.hasOwnProperty("error")){
                console.log(obJSON);
                console.log('... ', username, ' does not exist');
                return;
            }
            comments = obJSON["data"]["children"];
            last = obJSON["data"]["after"];
            console.log(last);
            if (last){
                setTimeout(function(){
                   // console.log("now");
                    grabComments(username, last);
                },2220) ;

            } else {
                var finishedMessage =( '...finished parsing ' +  username);
                console.log("before emit");
                self.emit('next', finishedMessage);
            }


            for (comment in comments)
            {
                if (!comments.hasOwnProperty(comment)) {
                    continue;
                }
                //console.log(JSON.stringify(comments[comment]["data"]["subreddit"], null,'\t'));
            }

        })
    }).on('error', function  (e) {
        console.log("got error: " + e.message);
    });
}
module.exports  = RedditParser;

server.js

var http = require('http');
var RedditParser = require('./redditParser');
///Creates the server//
http.createServer(function  (req,res) {
    comments_json = []
    res.writeHead(200, {'content-type': 'text/plain'});
    var spider = new RedditParser();

    spider.grabComments(req.url);
    spider.on('next', function  (message) {
        console.log(message);
    });
    res.end("loading" );
}).listen(8124, "127.0.0.1");