Allow ParameterList to be case insensitive
Created by: bartgol
@trilinos/teuchos
Expectations
I was wondering if there is a reason why ParameterList does not support case-insensitive strings (upon request, of course). I sometimes spend some time debugging a crash, and realize I used a lowercase letter instead of an uppercase (or viceversa) in the name of a parameter/sublist in the xml file. If ParameterList was somehow able to ignore the case of the parameters/sublists names, then this would not be a problem.
Note: I'm not talking about the (string-type) parameters values (although, at this point, the class could ignore that too), since those I can always convert to lower/upper case after fetching them from the list. I'm only talking about the parameter name, since I don't want/can't try all the possible typos when I look for a parameter.
Possible Solution
I guess one could set a bool flag at construction time, or even set it afterwards via a setter (in which case, the parameter list is immediately looped through and all the parameters/sublists names are converted to a predefined lower/upper case). Then, in all the getters/setters, before looking for the parameter/sublist, if the bool flag is on, the input string is first converted to a predefined lower/upper case.