Searching numeric strings with Full-Text Search in SQL 2005

Question

I'm using the SQL Full-Text Search and have a stored proceedure that uses the FREETEXTTABLE function.

This all works great, however, I have noticed that if I search for something such as 'Chapter 19' the 19 seems as if it is thrown away and the search only searches on 'Chapter'.

Also if I search for just '19' I get no results. I know the columns I have indexed contain a '19' in multiple rows.

Is this the intended behaviour? To not index numerics?

If so, then I suppose I'll have to live with it, but if not I'll be happy to post any T-SQL if anyone thinks I'm doing anything wrong.

Thanks.

P.S. I've googled this and have found nothing on searching numerics will full-text search.

Answer 1

I eventually found the reason behind this.

Numerics are considered as noise words in SQL server. You can allow searching on numerics by removing the numeric entries in the appropriate noise file for your language.

Noise files are found at in the FTData directoraty of your SQL Server install.

The english noise files are: noiseENU.txt & noiseENG.txt

Hope this helps someone.