title: SQL Full Text Search - Special Characters
body: <p>I have been given a database to look after that is configured for Full Text Searching.  Unfortunately, I've limited experience with this and an issue has come in where a search like this '"AT&amp;T"' brings back the correct search results but searching for '"AT&amp;"' brings back results that contain "AT" and not "AT&amp;".  </p>
  
  <p>I'm presuming this is because the "&amp;" symbol is a special character(?)</p>
  
  <p>My query (that works correctly) is:</p>
  
  <pre><code>SELECT TOP 1000 * FROM [DB_dev].[dbo].[Info] WHERE CONTAINS(Description, '"AT&amp;T"')
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Brings back only rows with a description containing "AT&amp;T".</p>
  
  <p>The query I'm having issue with is:</p>
  
  <pre><code>SELECT TOP 1000 * FROM [DB_dev].[dbo].[Info] WHERE CONTAINS(Description, '"AT&amp;"')
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Brings back any row containing a description of "AT".</p>
  
  <p>NOTE: I am using SQL Server 2014 and have tried escaping with the following:</p>
  
  <pre><code>SELECT TOP 1000 * FROM [DB_dev].[dbo].[Info] WHERE CONTAINS(Description, '"AT&amp;&amp;"')
  
  SELECT TOP 1000 * FROM [DB_dev].[dbo].[Info] WHERE CONTAINS(Description, '"AT%&amp;"')
  
  SELECT TOP 1000 * FROM [DB_dev].[dbo].[Info] WHERE CONTAINS(Description, '"AT\&amp;"')
  
  SELECT TOP 1000 * FROM [DB_dev].[dbo].[Info] WHERE CONTAINS(Description, '"AT[&amp;]"')
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>None of which work (find "A&amp;").</p>