Full-text predicates

The Microsoft Windows Search query language supports two full-text search predicates and one semantic meaning matching predicate.

The CONTAINS predicate performs comparisons on columns that contain text. The CONTAINS clause can perform matching on single words or phrases, based on the proximity of the search terms. In comparison, the FREETEXT predicate helps find documents that contain combinations of all the search words spread throughout the content or columns specified.

Note that for the majority of full text matching scenarios, it is highly recommended to use the newer and better-tuned FREETEXT predicate. The CONTAINS predicate exists for backward compatibility, and should be used only on an as-needed basis for specific use cases.

And finally, the CONTAINSSEMANTIC predicate is tuned to match the meaning of the search phrases against text columns.

This section contains the following topics:

• CONTAINS Predicate
• FREETEXT Predicate
• CONTAINSSEMANTIC Predicate

Related topics

Reference

FROM Clause

SCOPE and DIRECTORY Predicates

Conceptual

Non-Full-Text Predicates