what is the difference maven generating artifacts from cache and updates

Question

I would like to know the difference between generating artifacts from and cache and updates.

Does generating artifacts get from remote repository if it is not available in local repository?

I did not find any relevant posts regarding the same.

Answer 1

I do not know if I understand correctly your question, tell me if I have to delete the answer.

In Maven, there are the remote repositories and the local repository (under .m2 folder the local one).

In the moment you build a project, the dependencies to build that project are downloaded from the remote repositories and saved into the local repository. So the next time you build a project with that dependency there should be no need to download because there is in your local repository.

There are people who say that the cache and the local repository are the same. But for example, if you use Eclipse and if you go into .m2 folder, you can see a .cache folder. There should be a m2e folder. Here Eclipse save indexes to manage the dependencies.