Index on Year of date field

I have a table with an index on the date field. And I have a view created by:
  create view myview
  as select col1,to_char(date_col,'YYYY') year   from mytable ;

The explain plan of the statement
  select *
  from myview
  where year = '1997';
shows me a full table scan.

Can I create an index on the date field so that selecting by year that index is used?

Stephan Schaefer
stesch_at_camline.com Received on Tue Mar 03 1998 - 00:00:00 CST