title: How to get around 4000 characters limitation of text_query in Oracle's CONTAINS operator?
body: <p>In Oracle, the full text search syntax of <a href="http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B14117_01/text.101/b10730/csql.htm#i997503" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Contains operator</a> is:</p>
  
  <pre><code> CONTAINS(
            [schema.]column,
            text_query    VARCHAR2
            [,label       NUMBER]) RETURN NUMBER;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>which means the text_query can not be more than 4000 characters long or an error will occur. I repeatedly have text_query longer than 4000 characters long in many cases. How would you, as an Oracle expert, suggest to get around such limitation if possible?</p>
  
  <p>To further clarify the situation in which 4000 is easily reached is that if you combine many  <a href="http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B10501_01/text.920/a96518/cqoper.htm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Contains Query Operators</a> to construct your text_query, it is quite possible to exceed such 4000 characters limitation. </p>