Question

I have a menu in my view:

<ul>

    <li>
         <a href="<?php echo base_url(); ?>news" <?php if($nav_item == 'news'): ?>class="active-nav-item"<?php endif; ?>>News about Cars</a>
    </li>

    <li>
     <a href="<?php echo base_url(); ?>products" <?php if($nav_item == 'products'): ?>class="active-nav-item"<?php endif; ?>>Latest Products</a>
    </li>

    <li>
     <a href="<?php echo base_url(); ?>media" <?php if($nav_item == 'media'): ?>class="active-nav-item"<?php endif; ?>>Audio/Video</a>
    </li>

</ul>

And I am sending to this view a variable $nav_item from my controller e.g. news (I have controllers for every item in the navigation so: news, products and media controller) like this:

class News extends CI_Controller {

    public function index()
    {
        $data['nav_item'] = 'news'; // variable for navigation 
        $data['main_content'] = 'pages/news';
        $this->load->view('template', $data);
    }
}

So, it is working fine, but the code in a link is really long:

<a href="<?php echo base_url(); ?>news" <?php if($nav_item == 'news'): ?>class="active-nav-item"<?php endif; ?>>News about Cars</a>

I would like to make a function from this where I send only two parameters and it will do other things automatic. E.g. it could look like this:

<a href="<?php echo base_url(); ?>news" <?php activeitem($navitem,'news'); ?>>News about Cars</a>

So, if $navitem == 'news' it echoes "class='active-nav-item'"

How to do this function so I can put it in my e.g. myown_helper.php in helpers folder.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Function for the helper could be:

function activeitem($active_variable = '', $active_nav = '')
{
    return $active_variable == $active_nav ? 'class="active-nav-item"' : '';
}

Then on the link just do:

<?=activeitem($nav_item, 'news')?>