How to build a sql query that uses full text search if a index exists?

Question

I need to build a sqlserver query that if a text column has a full text index, it will be used, if not, the query will degrade to the O(N²) approach of LIKE '%word%'?

I believe the answer will be something like:

IF has_full_text_index('mycolumn')
    select mytable_id from mytable where contains(mycolumn, 'word')
ELSE
    select mytable_id from mytable where mycolumn like '%word%'
ENDIF

The query will be generated by a program. The query will always have just one word to match. The test to see if a column has a full text index must be quick.

Answer 1

While I tend to agree with Ken that you will know which of your tables belongs to a fulltext catalog, you can query

sp_help_fulltext_tables {catalogname}

for the tables in your catalog. (via MSDN)