title: Transact SQL CONTAINS not returning match for identical strings with a wildcard
body: <p>I'm encountering an issue on SQL Server 2008r2 where use of the CONTAINS function is not returning a match for completely identical strings. I'm pretty sure I'm misunderstanding something about CONTAINS.</p>
  
  <p>I've set up the following test case to replicate it.</p>
  
  <pre><code>CREATE TABLE texttest
  (
      loldex INT PRIMARY KEY IDENTITY,        
      testcolumn NVARCHAR(255)
  )
  
  GO
  
  INSERT INTO texttest
  VALUES('2ND ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES')
  
  GO
  
  CREATE UNIQUE INDEX ui_loldex ON [texttest](loldex);
  CREATE FULLTEXT INDEX ON [texttest]([testcolumn])
  KEY INDEX ui_loldex
  
  CREATE FULLTEXT CATALOG ft AS DEFAULT;
  
  GO
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Then I run the following query:</p>
  
  <pre><code>SELECT [testcolumn]
  FROM [texttest]
  WHERE CONTAINS(testcolumn, '"2ND ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES*"')
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>And it returns nothing.</p>
  
  <p>However, if I run:</p>
  
  <pre><code>SELECT [testcolumn]
  FROM [texttest]
  WHERE CONTAINS(testcolumn, '"2ND ACADEMY*"')
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>It returns the row.</p>
  
  <p>If I use any more of the characters in the string after the Y with the wildcard, I get nothing.</p>
  
  <p>If I remove the wildcard, I get the row from the identical string. However, I've tried the wildcard with other strings and it's worked fine. From what I understand, the wildcard stands for 0 or more additional characters, so I don't understand why it doesn't work in this case.</p>
  
  <p>Any idea what I'm missing here?</p>