In MySQL, the MATCH() function performs a full-text search. It accepts a comma separated list of table columns to be searched.

The table/s must have a FULLTEXT index before you can do a full-text search against them (although boolean queries against a MyISAM search index can work — albeit slowly — even without a FULLTEXT index).

You can create a FULLTEXT index when creating the table (using the CREATE TABLE statement), or you can use the ALTER TABLE statement or the CREATE INDEX statement if the table already exists.

By default, the search is case-insensitive. To perform a case-sensitive search, use a case-sensitive or binary collation for the indexed columns.

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In MySQL, you can use the SOUNDS LIKE operator to return results that sound like a given word.

This operator works best on strings in the English language (using it with other languages may return unreliable results).

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