"Re-chunking" Stream object in node.js - node.js

Question

Pretty simple node.js question. I want to extend the stream object to re-chunk the data that is coming in from a remote connection. I'm doing multiple telnets and sending commands to other servers, and they send back responses. It looks something like this.
> Hello, this is a command
This is the response to the command.
Sometimes it pauses here (which triggers the 'data' event prematurely).
But the message isn't over until you see the semicolon
;
What I'd like to do is instead of triggering the 'data' event at the pause, is wait for the ; and trigger a custom 'message' event.
I've read and reread this question, but I don't quite get it yet (partially because it's about a writable stream, and partially because I don't yet grok CoffeeScript).
EDIT: I guess I'm asking two things here:
How do I extend/inherit the stream object that net.CreateConnection uses?
Can I just extend the prototype.write to do a 'split' and re-'emit' each part?
Here's a snip of what I'm doing so far, but the chunking should be part of the stream, not part of the 'data' listener:
var net = require('net');
var nodes = [
//list of ip addresses
];
function connectToServer(ip) {
var conn = net.createConnection(3083, ip);
conn.on('connect', function() {
conn.write ("login command;");
});
conn.on('data', function(data) {
var read = data.toString();
var message_list = read.split(/^;/m);
message_list.forEach (function(message) {
console.log("Atonomous message from " + ip + ':' + message);
//I need to extend the stream object to emit these instead of handling it here
//Also, sometimes the data chunking breaks the messages in two,
//but it should really wait for a line beginning with a ; before it emits.
});
});
conn.on('end', function() {
console.log("Lost conncection to " + ip + "!!");
});
conn.on('error', function(err) {
console.log("Connection error: " + err + " for ip " + ip);
});
}
nodes.forEach(function(node) {
connectToServer(node);
});
If I was using a raw stream, I guess it would be something like this (based on code I found elsewhere)?
var messageChunk = function () {
this.readable = true;
this.writable = true;
};
require("util").inherits(messageChunk, require("stream"));
messageChunk.prototype._transform = function (data) {
var regex = /^;/m;
var cold_storage = '';
if (regex.test(data))
{
var message_list = read.split(/^;/m);
message_list.forEach (function(message) {
this.emit("data", message);
});
}
else
{
//somehow store the data until data with a /^;/ comes in.
}
}
messageChunk.prototype.write = function () {
this._transform.apply(this, arguments);
};
But I'm not using a raw stream, I'm using the stream object in the net.createConnection object returns.

Answer 1

Don't use the _transform,_read,_write,or _flush functions you implement directly, those are for the internals of node to use.
Emit a custom event when you see the character ";" in your stream:
var msg = "";
conn.on("data",function(data) {
var chunk = data.toString();
msg += chunk;
if(chunk.search(";") != -1) {
conn.emit("customEvent",msg);
msg = "";
}
});
conn.on("customEvent",function(msg) {
//do something with your message
});