Accessing variables in layout.phtml in zf2

Question

I have simple application in zf2, I have menu in layout which is for each page of application. e.g., provinces/index.phtml, districts/index.phtml, cities/index.phtml etc.

Menu is:

            <li class="start active ">
                <a href="admin">
                    <i class="fa fa-home"></i>
                    <span class="title">
                        Dashboard 
                    </span>
                    <span class="selected">
                    </span>
                </a>
            </li>
            <li>
                <a href="provinces">
                    <i class="fa fa-globe"></i>
                    <span class="title">
                        Provinces
                    </span> 
                </a> 
            </li>
            <li>
                <a href="districts">
                    <i class="fa fa-map-marker"></i>
                    <span class="title">
                        Districts
                    </span> 
                </a> 
            </li>
            <li>
                <a href="cities">
                    <i class="fa fa-tint"></i>
                    <span class="title">
                        Cities
                    </span> 
                </a> 
            </li>

I have code:

<div class="page-content-wrapper">
    <?php echo $this->content; ?> <!--this print contents of index.phtml -->
</div>

which access each page in the same layout.

Now I want to make menu dynamically, i.e., when provinces is selected then provinces should highlighted, if districts is selected then districts in menu should be highlighted.

I tried the logic like below: In provinces/index.phtml I write the code $selected_page="provinces", in districts/index.phtml I write the code $selected_page="districts" etc

Then in menu in layout:

I write class="start active" >

same is for districts and provinces etc.

But here variable $selected_page can not accessed, because

<?php echo $this->content; ?> 

can only print and display content of index.phtml, and variable is not passed to layout. So how should I do this? how should I pass variable $current_page to layout, or show me other logic about it.

Thanks in advance:

screenshot is given below with Dashboard highlighted:

Answer 1

If you want to pass variable from controller/action (for example provincesAction()) to view. Use layout() controller plugin:

public function provincesAction()
{
    $this->layout()->setVariable('foo', 'bar');
    return new ViewModel([]);
}

In layout.phtml

// html code
<?php echo $this->foo; ?> // It will display "bar"
// more html code

But for your example. I would suggest you to use navigation() view helper. Read more on https://framework.zend.com/manual/2.4/en/modules/zend.navigation.view.helper.menu.html. This plugin is made just for such things like you need.