Okay,

I believe I am missing something crucial to fulltext searching.  We are
looking at ways to change a search from using "like" to "contains" in
hopes of improving search performance on a table.  We have a fulltext
index on a lastname column.

The current search is something like this:

Declare @lastname varchar(50)

SET @lastname  = 'b'
SELECT * FROM tablename WHERE lastname like '%' + @lastname  + '%'

The above query returns all the records (over 50,000) correctly.

My question is, can fulltext searching return all records in a column
where 'b' is anywhere to be found in that column?  I'm asking because
when I use contains or freetext, the query only returns items where
lastname begins or ends with 'b' (Even using the * wildcard).

Declare @lastname varchar(50)

SET @lastname  = 'b'
SELECT * FROM tablename WHERE contains(lastname , @lastname)

Above gives 14 rows

SELECT * FROM tablename WHERE contains(lastname , '" *b* "')

Above gives 14 rows.

Any help as to whether or not I'm spinning my wheels on something that
cannot be done, would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Amy Marshall