Separately formatting date elements

Question

I am trying to achieve the following look in the time format:

I have for now several issues,
First is that the month and year are not displayed at all, I use <?php the_date('D'); ?> <?php the_date('M'); ?> <?php the_date('Y'); ?> for start and only the day is shown,

Second - Are there WP functions I can use to

• Get the month in 3 cap letters?
• Get only 2 last digits of year?

Or I have to use my own PHP functions for that?

Also, it must be hard-coded in the theme, because otherwise it will mess up the design.

Update
I used <?php echo get_the_date('M'); ?> and I got all the times, but isn't the_date meant exactly for that?

Answer 1

I believe all the info you need is in the PHP Manual for Date/Time. Also, it is recommended that you use get_the_date(); instead of the_date();

Get them month in 3 cap letters?

M is the right format character that outputs a short textual representation of a month (3 chars). Why can't you use CSS to capitalize all the three letters? I mean, text-transform: uppercase; should do it.

Get only 2 last digits of year?

Use the small y. It outputs two digit representation of a year.

EDIT (to answer the updated question)

The function reference for the_date(); in codex has a special note that says:

When there are multiple posts on a page published under the SAME DAY, the_date() only displays the date for the first post (that is, the first instance of the_date()). To repeat the date for posts published under the same day, you should use the Template Tag the_time() or get_the_date() (since 3.0) with a date-specific format string.