Non-Full-Text Predicates
The Microsoft Windows Search query language supports five non-full-text search predicates. The following table describes these predicates as discussed in this section.
| Non-full-text predicate | Description |
|---|---|
| LIKE Predicate | Column values are compared using simple pattern matching with wildcards. The pattern matching of the LIKE predicate is simpler than that of the MATCHES predicate, but not as powerful. |
| Literal Value Comparison | Column values are compared against string, date, time stamp, numeric, and other literal values. This predicate supports inequalities such as greater than ('>'), and less than ('<'). |
| MATCHES Predicate | Column values are compared using regular expression matching. The regular expression capability of the MATCHES predicate is more flexible and powerful than that of the LIKE predicate. |
| Multi-Valued (ARRAY) Comparisons | Multi-valued columns are compared against a multi-valued array of literals. |
| NULL Predicate | Column values that are undefined for the document can be detected using the NULL predicate. |
Important Search queries using the NULL or MATCHES predicates can require that Windows Search scan the entire catalog, which may degrade the query's performance.