Not realising that this function existed, I wrote something similar, but it has the additional facility to specify a minimum pause even if the target time has already been reached, for instance in a processor-intensive loop.
It's in seconds rather than microseconds (it's intended for heavy-duty CLI scripts), but that could easily be changed by using microtime(true) and usleep if greater granularity was required.
<?php
/**
* Pause processing until the specified time, to avoid hammering a DB or service
*
* @param int $target_time Timestamp
* @param int $min_sleep Always sleep for a minimum number of seconds,
* even if the target timestamp has already passed.
* Default 0, meaning only sleep until the target timestamp is reached.
*
* @example <code>
while ( ! $finished )
{
$minimum_start_of_next_loop = time() + $min_secs_per_loop;
# DO STUFF THAT MAY OR MAY NOT TAKE VERY LONG
sleep_until( $minimum_start_of_next_loop, $min_pause_between_loops );
}
</code>
*/
function sleep_until($target_time, $min_sleep = 0)
{
$time_now = time();
$time_to_target = $target_time - $time_now;
// If we've already reached the target time, that's fine
if ( $time_to_target <= $min_sleep )
{
// If required, sleep for a bit anyway
sleep( $min_sleep );
}
else
{
// Sleep for the number of seconds until the target time
sleep( $time_to_target );
}
}
?>