Recap

SQL Server's FTS facility is a potent tool that provides most of the functionality of standalone file-based search engines. Enabling columns for text searching is nontrivial and you should use Enterprise Manager or the sp_enable_fulltext stored procedure (included in this chapter) to set them up. Once a column has been set up for full-text searches, the CONTAINS and FREETEXT predicates, as well as the CONTAINSTABLE and FREETEXTTABLE rowset functions, become available for use. They offer a powerful alternative to commonplace search implements such as LIKE and PATINDEX.