It just amazed me to know that many PHP programmers are still using the old conventional tedious way of getting date and time. It reminds me of the Basic days.

Take a look at the codes below.

function shortMonthName($monthNum) {

if($monthNum == “01″)
$monthName = “Jan”;
elseif($monthNum == “02″)
$monthName = “Feb”;
elseif($monthNum == “03″)
$monthName = “Mar”;
elseif($monthNum == “04″)
$monthName = “Apr”;
elseif($monthNum == “05″)
$monthName = “May”;
elseif($monthNum == “06″)
$monthName = “Jun”;
elseif($monthNum == “07″)
$monthName = “Jul”;
elseif($monthNum == “08″)
$monthName = “Aug”;
elseif($monthNum == “09″)
$monthName = “Sep”;
elseif($monthNum == “10″)
$monthName = “Oct”;
elseif($monthNum == “11″)
$monthName = “Nov”;
else
$monthName = “Dec”;

return $monthName;
}

That’s a lot of lines there, in short, efficiency wise, the code is far from that. Below is a full rewrite of the code with the same output and fewer lines.

function sMonName($mDate){
return date(’M',strtotime(”$mDate”));
}

Given that the function expects the month number only then you can rewrite the code to something like the one below.

function sMonName($mNum){
return date(’F',strtotime(”1979-$mNum-1″));
}

Both returns the same output, you can play with the date format to achieve the desired format to return.

Have fun.