Administration

In the current implementation, full-text indexes are different from classic SQL Server indexes. These differences give rise to the need for the administrative tasks outlined here. Following is a summary of the main differences.

Classic SQL indexes	Full-text indexes
Stored in and under the control of the database.	Stored in the file system, but administered through the database.
Several indexes per table.	Only one full-text index definition per table.
Automatically updated when the data upon which they are based is inserted, updated, or deleted.	Population must be requested (either as scheduled or on demand).
Not grouped.	Grouped.
Created and dropped using SQL statements.	Created, managed, and dropped using stored procedures (either directly of by means of GUIs).

Full-Text Administration is carried out at several different levels:

Certain server-wide properties can be set, such as those required for Microsoft Search Service to initialize and prepare for index population.
A database must be enabled to use full-text search. Metadata for one or more full-text catalogs can be created and dropped in an enabled database.
A full-text catalog must be populated using administrative facilities.
A table must be registered as supporting full-text searches, at which time metadata is created for the full-text index of that table. A registered table must be activated before it can participate in the next full-text catalog population.
Columns that support full-text searches can be added or dropped from an inactive registered table.

At all of these levels, there are facilities to retrieve information on property, status, and volume (for example, size of the full-text catalog). These facilities take the form of both GUIs and stored procedures, and almost all tasks can be accomplished either way. This chapter concentrates on the stored procedures and gives only a few examples of the use of GUIs. The term “stored procedures” has been used to illustrate the level at which an administrator is communicating with SQL Server. In fact, a combination of stored procedures and scalar-valued property functions is used.