Using full text search, you can search for terms, phrases (sequences of terms), or prefixes. You can also combine multiple terms, phrases, or prefixes into boolean expressions, or require that expressions appear near to each other with proximity searches.

You perform a full text search using a CONTAINS clause in either a WHERE clause or a FROM clause of a SELECT statement. You can also perform a full text search as part of the IF search condition (for example, SELECT IF CONTAINS...).

The following sections show you how to perform the different types of full text search available in SQL Anywhere.