How do I enable full text search on MySql 8?

Question

I'm using MySql 8. I would like to speed up searches on my table of the form

select * FROM dirctory_coop where name like '%mystr%';

and someone mentioned using Full text searches -- https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/fulltext-search.html. However, I'm having an issue with this. Below is my table ...

mysql> desc directory_coop;
+----------+--------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| Field    | Type         | Null | Key | Default | Extra          |
+----------+--------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| id       | int          | NO   | PRI | NULL    | auto_increment |
| name     | varchar(250) | NO   |     | NULL    |                |
| enabled  | tinyint(1)   | NO   |     | NULL    |                |
| phone_id | int          | YES  | MUL | NULL    |                |
| email_id | int          | YES  | MUL | NULL    |                |
| web_site | longtext     | NO   |     | NULL    |                |
+----------+--------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+

I tried the below statements to update my column definition but am getting the following errors ...

mysql> alter table directory_coop modify column name FULLTEXT;
ERROR 1064 (42000): You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'FULLTEXT' at line 1
mysql> alter table directory_coop modify name FULLTEXT;
ERROR 1064 (42000): You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'FULLTEXT' at line 1

What else do I need to do to enable the performance optimizations that full text search supposedly provides?

Answer 1

You have to add or create an INDEx like

 ALTER TABLE directory_coop ADD FULLTEXT idx_name(name);

For more information read the manual ALTER TABLE

Answer 2

The first thing you must do is to create a FULLTEXT index as follows:

ALTER TABLE directory_coop ADD FULLTEXT name_ftndx (name);

That's just the beginning.

The next thing you need to do is understand the SQL syntax for using FULLTEXT indexes.

Please read the MySQL Documentation on FULLTEXT Indexes

I have many posts in the DBA StackExchange about using them.

Here is a good example to start you off : Why full-text-search returns less rows than LIKE. This will show you the difference between using LIKE and using the MATCH function.

I still recommend reading the MySQL Docs before reading my posts.

CAVEAT

Please know that 36 Words are not included in an InnoDB FULLTEXT Index.

I have mentioned the twice in the DBA StackExchange

• Aug 05, 2019 : Get stopwords of a InnoDB fulltext index
• May 05, 2018 : Mysql Fulltext search doesn't return any results