archetype:generate does not use <localRepository> in settings.xml when looking for archetype-catalog.xml

'mvn archetype:generate -DarchetypeCatalog=local' always looks in ~/.m2/archetype-catalog.xml i.e. it will always look in the USER_HOME/archetype-catalog.xml regardless of whether the local repository location has been overridden in the settings.xml.

You can verify this by deleting your archetype-catalog.xml in your home directory and creating a new one in a different directory - which you then specify in settings.xml e.g.:

<localRepository>D:\differentrepo</localRepository>

This will not pick up the archetype when running 'mvn archetype:generate -DarchetypeCatalog=local'. Now copy a valid archetype catalog to your home directory e.g. ~/.m2/archetype-catalog.xml and run 'mvn archetype:generate -DarchetypeCatalog=local' and you will see it is not using the localRepository from the settings.xml but somewhere it is hardcoded to use the user's home directory /.m2/.