RDF in Mozilla FAQ - Archive of obsolete content
you can either create an rdf/xml datasource using the rdf service's getdatasource() method: // get the rdf service var rdf = components .classes["@mozilla.org/rdf/rdf-service;1"] .getservice(components.interfaces.nsirdfservice); // ...and from it, get the datasource.
... using the nsirdfremotedatasource interface, it is possible to immediately query the loaded property to determine if the datasource has loaded or not: // get the rdf service var rdf = components .classes["@mozilla.org/rdf/rdf-service;1"] .getservice(components.interfaces.nsirdfservice); // get the datasource.
..." + aerrormsg); } }; // get the rdf service var rdf = components .classes["@mozilla.org/rdf/rdf-service;1"] .getservice(components.interfaces.nsirdfservice); // get the datasource.
... in either case, the datasource will be loaded using the nsirdfservice's getdatasource() method, so it will be managed similarly to all other datasources loaded this way.

A bird's-eye view of the Mozilla framework
help.js declares an nsirdfservice as a compile time constant at the beginning of the file.
... const rdf = components.classes["@mozilla.org/rdf/rdf-service;1"].getservice(components.interfaces.nsirdfservice); the components object is made available to javascript via xpconnect; it serves as a bridge connecting javascript and xpcom.
... getlink() uses the nsirdfservice to obtain an nsirdfresource for the requested link.

RDF Datasource How-To - Archive of obsolete content
this value, when prefixed with "rdf:", is a datasource identifier, and may be used with nsirdfservice::getdatasource() to retrieve your datasource from the rdf service.
... for example, the above datasource would be accessable as follows: nsirdfservice* rdf; rv = nsservicemanager::getservice(krdfservicecid, kirdfserviceiid, (nsisupports**) &rdf); if (ns_succeeded(rv)) { nsirdfdatasource* mydatasource; rv = rdf->getdatasource("rdf:my-datasource", &mydatasource); if (ns_succeeded(rv)) { // ...do something to mydatasource here...

Template Builder Interface - Archive of obsolete content
getservice(components.interfaces.nsirdfservice); var ds = rdf.getdatasource("http://www.xulplanet.com/ndeakin/tests/xul/template-guide-streets.rdf"); var tree = document.getelementbyid("thetree"); tree.database.adddatasource(ds); tree.builder.rebuild(); this is the typical way to add a datasource to an element, in this case to the tree with the id 'thetree'.

Places utilities for JavaScript
bookmarks nsinavbookmarksservice history nsinavhistoryservice globalhistory nsibrowserhistory livemarks nsilivemarkservice annotations nsiannotationservice favicons nsifaviconservice microsummaries nsimicrosummaryservice tagging nsitaggingservice rdf nsirdfservice ptm nsiplacestransactionsservice clipboard nsiclipboard urifixup nsiurifixup special places these are essentially references to the id's of special folders within places.