title: sometimes mysql fulltext search doesn't return any results when it should be
body: <p>My MySQL database table contains 2510 records. When I try to search for a string in a column, using fulltext search, sometimes, I don't get any results. Just an empty html table. </p>
  
  <p>For example, I'm searching for the author 'Peter Schmidt'. If I search for 'Peter' I'll get the right author, but if I search for 'Schmidt', the html table shows other authors, but not the right one. The author's column consist of 'surname, name' (Schmidt, Peter).</p>
  
  <p>This is a piece of my code:</p>
  
  <pre><code>    $author = mysql_real_escape_string($_GET['author']);
      $sql = "SELECT * FROM books WHERE MATCH(author) AGAINST ('$author' IN BOOLEAN MODE)";
      $query = mysql_query($sql);
      if (!$query) {
          echo 'We cannot find the author you are searching for. Please try again.';
          echo '&lt;a href="'.$_SERVER['PHP_SELF'].'" class="back" style="margin:0;" title="Go back"&gt;&amp;raquo; Go back&lt;/a&gt;';
  
      } else {
          echo '&lt;p&gt;These authors match your query:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;table&gt;'
          while ($result = mysql_fetch_array($query)) {
                  echo '&lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;'.$result['author'].'&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;';
          }
          echo '&lt;/table&gt;'
      }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>What causes this issue?</p>