Full-Text Search (SQL Server 2008)

[Alba Ra]

Hello,

for a database project (music festivals) several search options are to be included. While some search fields will be filled from a dropdown list (like "countries"), other will have a fuzzy option (like "song titles"). For this I want to use the full-text search (you may remember the words in the title but not all and not in the correct order).

Microsoft says to create a full-text catalog and then create full-text indices. As it is a bit too simple a description I found a blog by Pinal Dave going a bit more into detail.

What I don't get but is implied by Hilary Cotter: do you create a full-text catalog for each search you want to perform?

[samaru]

You create a full-text catalog for the pool of data you want to search in.

[Alba Ra]

Thanks, but do I create multiple catalogs for one database if I want to perform multiple unrelated searches?

Say, one search for band names, and another search for song titles...

[Alba Ra]

Okay, by now I have done a bit further research. Alexander Chigrik has written an article (Setting Up Full Text Search: A Step-by-step Guide) using screenshots from SQL Server 7.0 (yes, it was publishing October 26, 2002).

On one of the screenshots - the one showing the Full-Text Indexing Wizard asks to select a catalog - there you can read:

If this is a large table, or if a full-text catalog already indexes other large tables, consider assigning this table to its own full-text catalog.

Though a lot has happened since 2002 we may this still take as advice:

No, we don't need to create a new catalog for each indexed table. But if there's a lot of data in the table it may be wise to create a new one.