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mysqlmyisam

MySQL Full-Text search vs Like %%

What are key differences and what is a use case for both of them? Thanks!

Solution

  • Full-text search is the kind of search based on special sort of index (full-text, obviously). So you get the power of O(lgN) while searching using it.

    While like %% always causes table fullscan which can be terrible slow (when you have 100k and more rows).

    Personally I use Like %% when it is a small table (0-1000 rows) and I'm sure that it will never grow (and, important, when like %% fits the task requirements).

    Note: fulltext indexes are available only for myisam SE. If you use innodb - then you need to look at some 3rd party indexing software like sphinx