Behavior Changes to Full-Text Search in SQL Server 2005

  • Article

This topic describes the behavior changes in Full-Text Search features from previous releases of Microsoft SQL Server.

Behavior Changes

The following table contains the list of behavior changes.

Behavior change

Description

Master merge

In SQL Server 2000, a master merge would start at midnight, or when 500,000 documents were full-text indexed.

In SQL Server 2005, a master merge starts at the end of full population and also when an internal threshold on the number of full-text index files has been reached.

A master merge also occurs when 500,000 documents are full-text indexed, which is the same as in SQL Server 2000.

SQL Server 2005 also allows users to start a master merge using data definition language.

MSSearch service

In SQL Server 2000, Full-Text Search used the MSSearch service as the full-text indexing and search engine. In SQL Server 2005, this service has been renamed the MSFTESQL service. The MSFTESQL engine is built on MSSearch technology.

Full-Text Search related stored procedures

Because Full-Text Search related stored procedures have been rewritten in SQL Server 2005 to use the new full-text data definition language (DDL), some errors result in statement level errors.

The following errors result in statement level errors. Other failures are batch level failures.

  • Permission check failure.
  • Explicit transaction check failure. (A full-text stored procedure cannot be called within explicit user transactions).
  • Full-text related action run in master, temp, or model databases.
  • Database is not read-only check failed.
  • Database is not full-text enabled.
  • Parameter validation:
    • Catalog name not found.
    • Table name does not exist, or table is not eligible for full-text indexing.
    • Column name is not valid in the table.
    • Parameters such as database name and table name are null.

Full-text catalog cleanup functionality

Running sp_fulltext_service cleanup in SQL Server 2005 is not possible.

Noise words

In SQL Server 2005, if a query that uses a Full-Text Search predicate or function contains a noise word and the transform noise words configuration option is not on, a warning is issued and no rows are returned. For more information about this option, see transform noise words Option.

Rows with rank zero returned

In SQL Server 2000, rows with rank zero were not returned. In SQL Server 2005, these rows are included in the result set. This could potentially affect the results of stored procedures and other queries.

Running sp_fulltext_database

In SQL Server 2005, running sp_fulltext_database 'enable' on a user database that is already enabled for full-text indexing does nothing.

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User databases are enabled for full-text indexing by default.

See Also

Concepts

Breaking Changes to Full-Text Search in SQL Server 2005

Other Resources

Full-Text Search Backward Compatibility
Full-Text Search

Help and Information

Getting SQL Server 2005 Assistance