You can limit which indexes are considered with the USE INDEX option.
The default is 'FOR JOIN', which means that the hint only affects how the WHERE clause is optimized.
USE INDEX is used after the table name in the FROM clause.
USE INDEX cannot use an - it will be treated as if it doesn't exist.
When using index hints (USE, FORCE or IGNORE INDEX), the index name value can also be an unambiguous prefix of an index name.
This produces:
If we had not used USE INDEX, the Name index would have been in possible keys.
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USE INDEX [{FOR {JOIN|ORDER BY|GROUP BY}] ([index_list])CREATE INDEX Name ON City (Name);
CREATE INDEX CountryCode ON City (Countrycode);
EXPLAIN SELECT Name FROM City USE INDEX (CountryCode)
WHERE name="Helsingborg" AND countrycode="SWE";id select_type table type possible_keys key key_len ref rows Extra
1 SIMPLE City ref CountryCode CountryCode 3 const 14 Using where