What is the purpose of the "delay function" in PHP and when is it commonly used?

The purpose of the "delay function" in PHP is to introduce a pause or delay in the execution of a script. This can be useful in situations where you need to wait for a certain amount of time before proceeding with the next steps in your code, such as simulating a loading screen or pacing API requests to avoid rate limiting.

// Delay function in PHP
function delay($seconds) {
    sleep($seconds);
}

// Usage example: delay for 3 seconds
delay(3);