mysql 时间索引无效_MySQL日期时间索引不起作用

表结构：

+-------------+----------+------+-----+---------+----------------+

| Field | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra |

+-------------+----------+------+-----+---------+----------------+

| id | int(11) | NO | PRI | NULL | auto_increment |

| total | int(11) | YES | | NULL | |

| thedatetime | datetime | YES | MUL | NULL | |

+-------------+----------+------+-----+---------+----------------+

总行数： 137967

mysql> explain select * from out where thedatetime <= NOW();

+----+-------------+-------------+------+---------------+------+---------+------+--------+-------------+

| id | select_type | table | type | possible_keys | key | key_len | ref | rows | Extra |

+----+-------------+-------------+------+---------------+------+---------+------+--------+-------------+

| 1 | SIMPLE | out | ALL | thedatetime | NULL | NULL | NULL | 137967 | Using where |

+----+-------------+-------------+------+---------------+------+---------+------+--------+-------------+

带有更多表联接的真实查询要更长得多，关键是，我无法使表使用datetime索引。如果要选择特定日期之前的所有数据，这对我来说将很难。但是，我注意到，如果选择较小的数据子集，则可以使MySQL使用索引。

mysql> explain select * from out where thedatetime <= '2008-01-01';

+----+-------------+-------------+-------+---------------+-------------+---------+------+-------+-------------+

| id | select_type | table | type | possible_keys | key | key_len | ref | rows | Extra |

+----+-------------+-------------+-------+---------------+-------------+---------+------+-------+-------------+

| 1 | SIMPLE | out | range | thedatetime | thedatetime | 9 | NULL | 15826 | Using where |

+----+-------------+-------------+-------+---------------+-------------+---------+------+-------+-------------+

mysql> select count(*) from out where thedatetime <= '2008-01-01';

+----------+

| count(*) |

+----------+

| 15990 |

+----------+

那么，无论我放置什么日期，该如何确保MySQL将使用索引？