Stoplist Setting (STOPLIST)

The stoplist setting specifies terms that are not indexed.

The default for the stoplist setting is taken from the setting in the default text configuration object, which typically has an empty stoplist.

STOPLIST impact
To TEXT index	To query terms
GENERIC TEXT index – for GENERIC TEXT indexes, terms that are in the stoplist are not inserted into the TEXT index.	GENERIC TEXT index – for GENERIC TEXT indexes, query terms that are in the stoplist are ignored because they cannot exist in the TEXT index.
NGRAM TEXT index – for NGRAM TEXT indexes, the TEXT index does not contain the n-grams formed from the terms in the stoplist.	NGRAM TEXT index – terms in the stoplist are broken into n-grams and the n-grams are used for the stoplist. Likewise, query terms are broken into n-grams and any that match n-grams in the stoplist are dropped because they cannot exist in the TEXT index.

Consider carefully whether to put terms in to your stoplist. In particular, do not include words that have non-alphanumeric characters in them such as apostrophes or dashes. These characters act as term breakers. For example, the word you'll (which must be specified as 'you'll') is broken into you and ll and stored in the stoplist as these two terms. Subsequent full text searches for 'you' or 'they'll' are negatively impacted.

Stoplists in NGRAM TEXT indexes can cause unexpected results because the stoplist that is stored is actually in n-gram form, not the actual stoplist terms you specified. For example, in an NGRAM TEXT index where MAXIMUM TERM LENGTH is 3, if you specify STOPLIST 'there', these n-grams are stored as the stoplist: the her ere. This impacts the ability to query for any terms that contain the n-grams the, her, and ere.