equals(…) and equalsIgnoreCase(…)

Question

Why do we have equals() and equalsIgnoreCase() as two different methods, when equals() could have been overloaded with a special

Answer 1

It's absolutely possible to do what you are suggesting but the language designers chose to go the other way and hence we have equalsIgnoreCase(otherString) instead of say equals(otherString, StringConstants.IGNORE_CASE) or equals(otherString, true).