When using FREETEXTTABLE in ms sql server how do you search on the primary key?

Question

I have a query using a FREETEXTTABLE full text search which works perfectly for every column included in the index except for the primary key.

The primary keys are in a format like abcdef123456 and when you search for abcdef123456 you get that one record returned. However, if you search for abcd or 12345 you get no results (unless that phrase appears in another column in the index.)

Does anyone know if this is a bug, by design, or just some other problem I haven't encounted?

Answer 1

Fulltext is not for searching parts of words. It's for searching words in texts. CHARINDEX you might want to use in your case.