Using sleep() delays all output - php

Question

I've built an IRC bot using a PHP bot framework called Philip (https://github.com/epochblue/philip). When the command !hello is sent into the chat by anyone, the bot should say "hello..." into the channel, wait 45 seconds, say "foo", wait 15 seconds, then say "bar" (I know that doesn't make any sense, just trying to get this code to work).
Here's the code that I've tried so far:
Attempt #1
$bot->onChannel('/^!hello$/', function($event) {
$event->addResponse(Response::msg($event->getRequest()->getSource(), "hello..."));
$now = time();
while ($now + 45 > time()) {
}
$event->addResponse(Response::msg($event->getRequest()->getSource(), "foo"));
while ($now + 60 > time()) {
}
$event->addResponse(Response::msg($event->getRequest()->getSource(), "bar"));
});
Attempt #2
$bot->onChannel('/^!hello$/', function($event) {
$event->addResponse(Response::msg($event->getRequest()->getSource(), "hello..."));
sleep(45);
$event->addResponse(Response::msg($event->getRequest()->getSource(), "foo"));
sleep(15);
$event->addResponse(Response::msg($event->getRequest()->getSource(), "bar"));
});
With both of those attempts, the bot will wait the full 60 seconds before outputting anything at all. So instead of sending one message, then waiting, then sending another message, then waiting, then sending a third message, it just waited all 60 seconds then sent messages.
Any idea as to how I can get this to work as I would like it to?
Thanks

Answer 1

If you take a look at the fwrite() docs, it has the following tidbit:
Note:
Writing to a network stream may end before the whole string is written. Return value of fwrite() may be checked:
<?php
function fwrite_stream($fp, $string) {
for ($written = 0; $written < strlen($string); $written += $fwrite) {
$fwrite = fwrite($fp, substr($string, $written));
if ($fwrite === false) {
return $written;
}
}
return $written;
}
So in your Phillip::send method, you could incorporate a similar solution to hold the method until the fwrite to the socket is completed and return a success boolean, etc.

Answer 2

Sleep freezes the thread you are currently in.
You should either do the message sending on a new thread (and sleep there causing the main thread not to freeze) using "pthreads" or you should use a timer.