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

Because equals() method is inherited from Object.

If they did it as you suggest then we would have something like this:

public final class String {

    public boolean equals () { ... }

    public boolean equals (boolean ignoreCase) { ... }

} 

And without reading documentation it would be impossible to understand what method equals() (which without parameter) do.