Editing MSSQL Cookbook (section)

==Full-Text Searches==

*MSDN: [http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms142571.aspx Full-Text Search (SQL Server)] Starting point for MSDN full-text search articles.
*MSDN: [http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms142583.aspx Full-Text Predicates and Functions Overview]<br />Basic differences between <code>FREETEXT/CONTAINS/FREETEXTTABLE/CONTAINSTABLE</code>.
*MSDN: [http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms142559.aspx Querying SQL Server Using Full-Text Search]
*MSDN: [http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms142524.aspx How Search Query Results Are Ranked (Full-Text Search)]


<code>CONTAINS</code> and <code>CONTAINSTABLE</code> vs <code>FREETEXT</code> and <code>FREETEXTTABLE</code>:

<code>CONTAINS</code> is a literal boolean match. If the search term contains multiple words, they must be surrounded by double quotes, or separated with "and", "or", "near", etc. If you search for "Mountain", then the literal word "Mountain" must be somewhere in the text. Which is similar to the way that the <code>LIKE</code> predicate works, eg <code>WHERE text LIKE '%Mountain%'</code>.

<code>FREETEXT</code> matches more on the meaning of the search term rather than the literal characters in the search term.

<code>FREETEXT/CONTAINS</code> vs. <code>FREETEXTTABLE/CONTAINSTABLE</code>: <code>FREETEXTTABLE</code> and <code>CONTAINSTABLE</code> return a RANK for the matches.