Is there a function similar to setTimeout() (JavaScript) for PHP?

Question

The question sort of says it all - is there a function which does the same as the JavaScript function setTimeout() for PHP? I\'ve searched

Answer 1

PHP isn't event driven, so a setTimeout doesn't make much sense. You can certainly mimic it and in fact, someone has written a Timer class you could use. But I would be careful before you start programming in this way on the server side in PHP.

Answer 2

http://php.net/manual/en/class.evtimer.php is probably what you are looking for, you can have a function called during set intervals, similar to setInterval in javascript. it is a pecl extension, if you have whm/cpanel you can easily install it through the pecl software/extension installer page.

i hadn't noticed this question is from 2010 and the evtimer class started to be coded in 2012-2013. so as an update to an old question, there is now a class that can do this similar to javascripts settimeout/setinterval.

Answer 3

There's the sleep function, which pauses the script for a determined amount of time.

See also usleep, time_nanosleep and time_sleep_until.