Why full-text-search returns less rows than LIKE I don't get full-text-search working as I want it to, and I don't understand the differences in the resultlists.
Example statements: 

SELECT `meldungstext`
FROM `artikel`
WHERE `meldungstext` LIKE '%punkt%'


returns 92 rows. I receive rows which have matches, for example, like "Punkten", "Zwei-Punkte-Vorsprung" and "Treffpunkt" in column meldungstext.

I set a fulltext-index on the column "meldungstext" and tried this: 

SELECT `meldungstext`
FROM `artikel`
WHERE MATCH (`meldungstext`)
AGAINST ('*punkt*')


this returns only 8 rows. I receive only rows which have matches to "Punkt" itself or words which I think are taken as "Punkt" as in "i-Punkt".

I then tried boolean mode:

SELECT `meldungstext`
FROM `artikel`
WHERE MATCH (`meldungstext`)
AGAINST ('*punkt*' IN BOOLEAN MODE)


returns 44 rows. I receive rows which have "Zwei-Punkte-Vorsprung" or "Treffpunkt" in column meldungstext, but not those with "Punkten".

Why does this happen and how can I set a "fully" working full-text-search to prevent using LIKE '%%' in the where-clause?
I took the three strings in your question and added it to a table plus three more string with pankt instead of punkt.

The following was executed using MySQL 5.5.12 for Windows

mysql&gt; CREATE TABLE artikel
    -&gt; (
    -&gt;     id INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
    -&gt;     meldungstext MEDIUMTEXT,
    -&gt;     PRIMARY KEY (id),
    -&gt;     FULLTEXT (meldungstext)
    -&gt; ) ENGINE=MyISAM;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.03 sec)

mysql&gt; INSERT INTO artikel (meldungstext) VALUES
    -&gt; ('Punkten'),('Zwei-Punkte-Vorsprung'),('Treffpunkt'),
    -&gt; ('Pankten'),('Zwei-Pankte-Vorsprung'),('Treffpankt');
Query OK, 6 rows affected (0.00 sec)
Records: 6  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 0

mysql&gt;


I ran these queries against the table using 3 different approaches


MATCH ... AGAINST
LOCATE as in the LOCATE function
LIKE


Please note the differences

mysql&gt; SELECT id,meldungstext,
    -&gt; COUNT(IF(MATCH (`meldungstext`) AGAINST ('*punkt*' IN BOOLEAN MODE),1,0)) PunktMatch,
    -&gt; IF(LOCATE('punkt',meldungstext)&gt;0,1,0) PunktLocate,
    -&gt; meldungstext  LIKE '%punkt%' PunktLike
    -&gt; FROM `artikel` GROUP BY id,meldungstext;
+----+-----------------------+------------+-------------+-----------+
| id | meldungstext          | PunktMatch | PunktLocate | PunktLike |
+----+-----------------------+------------+-------------+-----------+
|  1 | Punkten               |          1 |           1 |         1 |
|  2 | Zwei-Punkte-Vorsprung |          1 |           1 |         1 |
|  3 | Treffpunkt            |          1 |           1 |         1 |
|  4 | Pankten               |          1 |           0 |         0 |
|  5 | Zwei-Pankte-Vorsprung |          1 |           0 |         0 |
|  6 | Treffpankt            |          1 |           0 |         0 |
+----+-----------------------+------------+-------------+-----------+
6 rows in set (0.01 sec)

mysql&gt;


All the PunktMatch values should bee 3 1's and 3 0's.

Now watch me query them as normal

mysql&gt; SELECT `meldungstext` FROM `artikel`
    -&gt; WHERE MATCH (`meldungstext`) AGAINST ('*punkt*' IN BOOLEAN MODE);
+-----------------------+
| meldungstext          |
+-----------------------+
| Zwei-Punkte-Vorsprung |
| Punkten               |
+-----------------------+
2 rows in set (0.01 sec)

mysql&gt; SELECT `meldungstext` FROM `artikel`
    -&gt; WHERE LOCATE('punkt',meldungstext)&gt;0;
+-----------------------+
| meldungstext          |
+-----------------------+
| Punkten               |
| Zwei-Punkte-Vorsprung |
| Treffpunkt            |
+-----------------------+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql&gt; SELECT `meldungstext` FROM `artikel`
    -&gt; WHERE `meldungstext` LIKE '%punk%';
+-----------------------+
| meldungstext          |
+-----------------------+
| Punkten               |
| Zwei-Punkte-Vorsprung |
| Treffpunkt            |
+-----------------------+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql&gt;


OK using MATCH .. AGAINST with punkt does not work. What about pankt ???

mysql&gt; SELECT `meldungstext` FROM `artikel` WHERE `meldungstext` LIKE '%pankt%';
+-----------------------+
| meldungstext          |
+-----------------------+
| Pankten               |
| Zwei-Pankte-Vorsprung |
| Treffpankt            |
+-----------------------+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql&gt;


Let's run my big GROUP BY query against pankt

mysql&gt; SELECT id,meldungstext,
    -&gt; COUNT(IF(MATCH (`meldungstext`) AGAINST ('*pankt*' IN BOOLEAN MODE),1,0)) PanktMatch,
    -&gt; IF(LOCATE('pankt',meldungstext)&gt;0,1,0) PanktLocate,
    -&gt; meldungstext  LIKE '%pankt%' PanktLike
    -&gt; FROM `artikel` GROUP BY id,meldungstext;
+----+-----------------------+------------+-------------+-----------+
| id | meldungstext          | PanktMatch | PanktLocate | PanktLike |
+----+-----------------------+------------+-------------+-----------+
|  1 | Punkten               |          1 |           0 |         0 |
|  2 | Zwei-Punkte-Vorsprung |          1 |           0 |         0 |
|  3 | Treffpunkt            |          1 |           0 |         0 |
|  4 | Pankten               |          1 |           1 |         1 |
|  5 | Zwei-Pankte-Vorsprung |          1 |           1 |         1 |
|  6 | Treffpankt            |          1 |           1 |         1 |
+----+-----------------------+------------+-------------+-----------+
6 rows in set (0.01 sec)

mysql&gt;


This is wrong also because I should see 3 0's and 3 1's for PanktMatch.

I tried something else

mysql&gt; SELECT id,meldungstext, MATCH (`meldungstext`) AGAINST ('+*pankt*' IN BOOLEAN MODE) PanktMatch, IF(LOCATE('pankt',meldungstext)&gt;0,1,0) PanktLocate, meldungstext  LIKE '%pankt%' PanktLike FROM `artikel` GROUP BY id,meldungstext;
+----+-----------------------+------------+-------------+-----------+
| id | meldungstext          | PanktMatch | PanktLocate | PanktLike |
+----+-----------------------+------------+-------------+-----------+
|  1 | Punkten               |          0 |           0 |         0 |
|  2 | Zwei-Punkte-Vorsprung |          0 |           0 |         0 |
|  3 | Treffpunkt            |          0 |           0 |         0 |
|  4 | Pankten               |          1 |           1 |         1 |
|  5 | Zwei-Pankte-Vorsprung |          1 |           1 |         1 |
|  6 | Treffpankt            |          0 |           1 |         1 |
+----+-----------------------+------------+-------------+-----------+
6 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql&gt;


I added a plus sign to pankt and I got different results. What 2 and not 3 ???

According to the MySQL Documentation, notice what it says about the wildcard character:


  *
  
  The asterisk serves as the truncation (or wildcard) operator. Unlike
  the other operators, it should be appended to the word to be affected.
  Words match if they begin with the word preceding the * operator.
  
  If a word is specified with the truncation operator, it is not
  stripped from a boolean query, even if it is too short (as determined
  from the ft_min_word_len setting) or a stopword. This occurs because
  the word is not seen as too short or a stopword, but as a prefix that
  must be present in the document in the form of a word that begins with
  the prefix. Suppose that ft_min_word_len=4. Then a search for '+word
  +the*' will likely return fewer rows than a search for '+word +the':
  
  The former query remains as is and requires both word and the* (a word
  starting with the) to be present in the document.
  
  The latter query is transformed to +word (requiring only word to be
  present). the is both too short and a stopword, and either condition
  is enough to cause it to be ignored.


Based on this, the wildcard character is applicable for the back of tokens and not for the front. In light of this, the output must be correct because 2 of the 3 punkt's start tokens. Same story with pankt. This at least explains why 2 out of 3 and why less rows.