making class="active" for nav menu in php - php

Question

I'm creating a website..When it comes to the navigation menu, I listed it and need the nav bar class to be active when that menu is clicked. It's fine to give class="active" for the list tag. But I need it to be active only when clicked. How can I achieve this .?
My list is :
<div class="menu">
<ul class="nav" id="nav">
<li class="active">
<?php echo anchor("cntrl/index","Home"); ?>
</li>
<li><?php echo $this->session->userdata('user_name'); ?></li>
<li>About</li>
<li>
<?php echo anchor("cntrl/jobs","Jobs"); ?>
</li>
<li>
<?php echo anchor('cntrl/logout','Logout'); ?>
</li>
<div class="clearfix"></div>
</ul>
<script type="text/javascript" src="<?php echo base_url(); ?>/js/responsive-nav.js"></script>
</div>

Answer 1

Well, I handle this sort of issue as follows:
set the active link (which is resided in the url when the link is clicked) into an variable in the controller function which is called by the link
$data['active_link'] = 'home'; # for example
check it in the view file (JS):
$(document).ready(function(){
var active_link = "<?php echo $active_link;?>";
$("li").removeClass('active');
$("#"+active_link).addClass('active');
});

Answer 2

Use the following code.
<li class="<?php echo (endsWith($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], 'cntrl/jobs')? 'active':''); ?>">
<?php echo anchor("cntrl/jobs","Jobs"); ?>
</li>
Main part of this code is
endsWith($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], 'cntrl/jobs')
Where $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] is your current URL. and 'cntrl/jobs' is your menu which is being checked with current URL.