Convert month numbers to letters PHP - php

Question

I have this code to echo some records from a mysql database:
<?php
$host = "localhost";
$gebruikersnaam = "Admin";
$wachtwoord = "Test123";
mysql_connect($host, $gebruikersnaam, $wachtwoord);
$database = "olf";
mysql_select_db($database);
$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM agenda WHERE datum ORDER BY datum ASC LIMIT 0, 3");
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))
{
?>
<ul class="dates">
<li>
<span class="date"><?php echo "" .substr($row['datum'],5,2). "";?></strong></span>
</li>
<?php } ?>
</ul>
In the database the format of the 'datum' (date) is YYYY-MM-DD, I echo just the part MM. So this is the format: 01 (January), 02 (February) etc. What I want:
If " .substr($row['datum'],5,2). " is equal to 01, then convert it to JAN
If " .substr($row['datum'],5,2). " is equal to 02, then convert it to FEB
If " .substr($row['datum'],5,2). " is equal to 03, then convert it to MAR
ETC..
How do I need to make this?

Answer 1

You shouldn't have to hassle with this yourself - let MySQL do the heavy lifting for you:
SELECT DATE_FORMAT (datum, '%b') AS month_abbreviation
FROM agenda

Answer 2

Use the date function to display the date in a specific format.
In this case, M displays the three first letters of the months name.
echo date("M", strtotime($row['datum']));

Answer 3

Convert the incoming information to a DateTime object, then you can apply all sorts of fancy formatting rules:
$date = \DateTime::createFromFormat( "Y-m-d", $row['datum'] );
echo $date->format( 'M' ); // for just month in text
echo $date->format( 'D dS of F Y' ); // for example, "Monday 6th of November 2014"
Check out the workings of \DateTime on the php website:
http://nl1.php.net/manual/en/datetime.createfromformat.php