What is Full Text Search vs LIKE

Question

I just read a post mentioning "full text search" in SQL.

I was just wondering what the difference between FTS and LIKE are. I did read a couple of articles but couldn't find anything that explained it well.

Thanks.

Answer 1

FTS involves indexing the individual words within a text field in order to make searching through many records quick. Using LIKE still requires you to do a string search (linear or the like) within the field.

Answer 2

Like uses wildcards only, and isn't all that powerful.

Full text allows much more complex searching, including And, Or, Not, even similar sounding results (SOUNDEX) and many more items.

I would start looking at the SQL CONTAINS() FREETEXT() and related Full Text search items to help get a better understanding of what is available.