Contains and catsearch operates differently ?

Question

Hi,
I've got an app which does a search on product names;
create table products_tbl(id number primary key, text varchar2(4000));
insert into products_tbl values(112,'Smith Bitter');
commit;
create index products_idx on products_tbl( text )
indextype is ctxsys.context;
I get no data found with this query; select * from products_tbl where contains(text,'Bitter Smith',1) >0;
If I drop the context index and create a ctxcat one instead;
drop index products_idx;
create index products_idx on products_tbl( text )
indextype is ctxsys.ctxcat;
Running the following does return the row; select * from products_tbl where catsearch(text, 'Bitter Smith','')>0;
Is this expected behaviour? I understand the uses for CONTEXT and CTXCAT, but just didn't see anything in the documentation which suggested contains and catsearch operated in different manner above.
My DB is 10g, but I've tried it on 11g and it's the same.
Cheers

Answer 1

The syntax is different. Searching for "a b c" using catsearch is the same as searching for "a AND b AND c" using contains. This is documented in the following section:
http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B28359_01/text.111/b28304/csql.htm#i997256
You can use a query template with context grammar to get the results that you would expect from a contains search. Please see the demonstration below.
SCOTT@orcl_11g> create table products_tbl(id number primary key, text varchar2(4000));
Table created.
SCOTT@orcl_11g> insert into products_tbl values(112,'Smith Bitter');
1 row created.
SCOTT@orcl_11g> insert into products_tbl values(113,'Bitter Smith');
1 row created.
SCOTT@orcl_11g> commit;
Commit complete.
SCOTT@orcl_11g> create index products_idx on products_tbl( text )
  2  indextype is ctxsys.context;
Index created.
SCOTT@orcl_11g> column text format a30
SCOTT@orcl_11g> select * from products_tbl where contains(text,'Bitter Smith',1) >0;
        ID TEXT
       113 Bitter Smith
SCOTT@orcl_11g> drop index products_idx;
Index dropped.
SCOTT@orcl_11g> create index products_idx on products_tbl( text )
  2  indextype is ctxsys.ctxcat;
Index created.
SCOTT@orcl_11g> select * from products_tbl where catsearch(text, 'Bitter Smith','')>0;
        ID TEXT
       112 Smith Bitter
       113 Bitter Smith
SCOTT@orcl_11g> select *
  2  from   products_tbl
  3  where  catsearch
  4             (text,
  5              '<query>
  6              <textquery grammer="CONTEXT" language="english">Bitter Smith
  7              </textquery>
  8            </query>','') > 0;
        ID TEXT
       113 Bitter Smith
SCOTT@orcl_11g>