What strategies can be employed to ensure active or highlighted states in navigation elements when using PHP for menu generation?

To ensure active or highlighted states in navigation elements when using PHP for menu generation, you can compare the current page URL with the URL of each menu item and add a specific class to the active item. This can be done by checking if the current URL contains a specific keyword or path that corresponds to the menu item.

<?php
// Get the current page URL
$current_url = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];

// Define an array of menu items with their corresponding URLs
$menu_items = array(
    'Home' => '/',
    'About' => '/about',
    'Services' => '/services',
    'Contact' => '/contact'
);

// Loop through the menu items and add a class to the active item
foreach ($menu_items as $title => $url) {
    $class = ($current_url == $url) ? 'active' : '';
    echo '<li class="' . $class . '"><a href="' . $url . '">' . $title . '</a></li>';
}
?>