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

The main test when overridng a method with additional parameters is that I would expect any method override to do exactly the same thing as the method it's overriding. Equals(), being derived from Object has a contract it must follow. Two objects that are equal() should have identical hashcodes. I don't think two objects that are case insensitive equal should have the same hashcode, so I believe overriding equal here is the wrong thing to do.