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Programming Interfaces
Data Management : Database Access : The CONTAINS operator : Word indexes and word-break tables
 
Word indexes and word-break tables
In order for the AVM to use word indexes, it must first build and maintain them, which it does as you add, delete, and modify records that have fields that participate in them. Consider the sports2000 database's Item table, whose CatDescription field participates in a word index. Every time an Item record is added, the AVM examines the contents of the CatDescription field, breaks it down into individual words, and, for each individual word, creates or modifies a word index. To break down the contents of a field into individual words, the AVM must know which characters act as word delimiters. To get this information, the AVM consults the database's word-break table, which lists characters and describes the word-delimiting properties of each.