How can bzr know about launchpad?

Question

I'm a git user, and I'd like to clone a repository for a project hosted on Launchpad, which uses bzr instead.

On the guide they suggest me to run bzr branch lp:zim (where "zim" is the project). I'm wondering how is bzr aware of what "lp" means. Is this thanks to some plugin which is installed by default on my Mint Linux (which is basically a Ubuntu in disguise, so that's likely)? Are there more of these magic keywords?

Answer 1

This is a built in command for bzr. Remember bzr and Launchpad are both primarily written by the same company (canonical) and bzr has a large amount of support for Launchpad.

Another such keyword is bzr branch ubuntu:package, which gets the version of the package in the current Ubuntu release, from Launchpad.

This page has more information about Launchpad integration.

Answer 2

There is a plugin shipped with bzr by default (see bzrlib/plugins/launchpad in the source). This registers a custom handler for the "lp:" URL scheme (and similarly for the "ubuntu:" scheme).