Hi,

I read in MSDN that

If the text and asterisk are not delimited by double quotation marks, as in
CONTAINS (column, 'text*'), full-text search considers the asterisk as a
character and will search for exact matches to text*.

However.... I have this code:

If chkOptions.Items(1).Selected = True Then 'Starts With...
strText = "" & strText & "*" & ""
End If

If chkOptions.Items(0).Selected = True Then 'Allow Flexionary Forms...
strText = "FormsOf(INFLECTIONAL," & strText & ")"
End If

strSearch = "SELECT " & _
"ST.[Rank], Titles.title as Title, Titles.notes as Notes, Authors.au_fname
as [F.Name], Authors.au_lname as [L.Name] " & _
"FROM " & _
"ContainsTable (Titles, *, '" & strText & "') as ST " & _
"INNER JOIN Titles ON ST.[Key] = Titles.title_id " & _
"INNER JOIN TitleAuthor ON Titles.title_id = TitleAuthor.title_id " & _
"INNER JOIN Authors ON TitleAuthor.au_id = Authors.au_id " & _
"ORDER BY ST.[Rank] DESC"

I enter the string cook as strText. Then I build strText as "cook*"
(containing the double quotes).
For some reason, which I have yet to understand, VB takes away my double
quotes, so in the end strSearch comes out as:

SELECT ST.[Rank], Titles.title as Title, Titles.notes as Notes,
Authors.au_fname as [F.Name], Authors.au_lname as [L.Name] FROM
ContainsTable(Titles, *, 'cook*') as ST INNER JOIN Titles ON ST.[Key] =
Titles.title_id INNER JOIN TitleAuthor ON Titles.title_id =
TitleAuthor.title_id INNER JOIN Authors ON TitleAuthor.au_id = Authors.au_id
ORDER BY ST.[Rank] DESC

Anyway, my question is this - since as per MSDN the engine searches for the
string 'cook*' (containing the asterisc), it should NOT find any (I have no
string 'cook*' in my table). However, it returns the exact same result as if
I only searched for 'cook', without any asterisc - I get back two records.

The "INFLECTIONAL" part, though,works just fine.

I think I should go to bed now - apparently I can't see something obvious
;-)))

Thank you.
Alex.