Full Text Search across multiple tables

Imagine you're building a search for a movie database which you wanted to
index actors, quotes from scenes and movie names into a single search... ho
w
do you accomplish this using full text search? The closest I can think of
is... (for a sample search for "Walken"
select RANK, actorId as Id from FREETEXTTABLE( actors, *, 'ISABOUT (+ WALKEN
+ WEIGHT(1.0))') a JOIN actors b on a.[key] = b.actorid
UNION ALL
select RANK, sceneId as Id from FREETEXTTABLE( scenes, *, 'ISABOUT (+ WALKEN
+ WEIGHT(1.0))') a JOIN scenes b on a.[key] = b.sceneId
UNION ALL
select RANK, movieId as Id from FREETEXTTABLE( movie, *, 'ISABOUT (+ WALKEN
+ WEIGHT(1.0))') a JOIN movie b on a.[key] = b.movieId
But it doesn't rank correctly. Suggestions? I was thinking of creating a
view to combine all the tables, but that doesn't work either, since the view
wouldn't have a unique column (which FTS needs)Iron,
If I understand your question this might help. I've done this before with
company names, addresses and phone numbers and other company information
contained in multiple tables.
1. Create another table with a column that concatinates all the columns you
want to index. It would require a composite primary key of actorid, sceneid,
and movieid. I am assuming that this relationship exists in your database.
2. Configure your full text catalog to work with the new table and column.
3. Populate the new table.
4. Apply your full text queries against the new table and join to the other
tables to return the recordsets.
I duplicates data, but it works great.
-- Bill
"IronYuppie" <IronYuppie@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:E5C1BB12-8C96-4EE2-81CA-9157E67C388E@.microsoft.com...
> Imagine you're building a search for a movie database which you wanted to
> index actors, quotes from scenes and movie names into a single search...
> how
> do you accomplish this using full text search? The closest I can think of
> is... (for a sample search for "Walken"
> select RANK, actorId as Id from FREETEXTTABLE( actors, *, 'ISABOUT (+
> WALKEN
> + WEIGHT(1.0))') a JOIN actors b on a.[key] = b.actorid
> UNION ALL
> select RANK, sceneId as Id from FREETEXTTABLE( scenes, *, 'ISABOUT (+
> WALKEN
> + WEIGHT(1.0))') a JOIN scenes b on a.[key] = b.sceneId
> UNION ALL
> select RANK, movieId as Id from FREETEXTTABLE( movie, *, 'ISABOUT (+
> WALKEN
> + WEIGHT(1.0))') a JOIN movie b on a.[key] = b.movieId
> But it doesn't rank correctly. Suggestions? I was thinking of creating a
> view to combine all the tables, but that doesn't work either, since the
> view
> wouldn't have a unique column (which FTS needs)