Best ASP.Net web.sitemap alternative in PHP

In ASP.Net, I usually control my main navigation with a standard file web.sitemap, for example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<siteMap xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/AspNet/SiteMap-File-1.0" >
    <siteMapNode url="~/index.html" title="My Awesome Site">
        <siteMapNode url="~/About/index.html" title="About">
            <siteMapNode url="~/About/Board.html" title="Board"/>
            <siteMapNode url="~/About/Vision.html" title="Vision"/>
            <siteMapNode url="~/About/Mission.html" title="Mission"/>
            <siteMapNode url="~/About/Support.html" title="Support"/>
            <siteMapNode url="~/About/Locations.html" title="Locations"/>
            <siteMapNode url="~/About/Funding-Sources.html" title="Funding Sources"/>
            <siteMapNode url="~/About/Volunteer.html" title="Volunteer"/>
            <siteMapNode url="~/About/Staff.html" title="Staff"/>
        </siteMapNode>
        <siteMapNode url="~/Parents/index.html" title="Parents">
            <siteMapNode url="~/Parents/Child-Development.html" title="Child Development"/>
            <siteMapNode url="~/Parents/Referrals.html" title="Referrals"/>
        </siteMapNode>
        <siteMapNode url="~/Resources/index.html" title="Resources">
            <siteMapNode url="~/Resources/Resource-Library.html" title="Resource Library"/>
            <siteMapNode url="~/Resources/Links.html" title="Links"/>
        </siteMapNode>
    </siteMapNode>
</siteMap>

Then I usually create a custom navigation control where I can use SiteMap.CurrentNodeand / or SiteMap.CurrentNode.IsDescendantOfto mark the current page as “selected” or whatever. I am looking for something similar for PHP. In ASP classic, we would pretty often use include and a bunch of statements ifthat work, but as soon as you get a couple of levels in depth, you get a bunch of code. I could probably create variables at the top of each page to indicate which “sections”, “unit” and “page” we are in, but I would like to avoid this if possible.

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EDIT - @BrandonS

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, , , node, , . , , SiteMap.CurrentNode . VB.Net , L2:

    ''//An array that we append potential CSS class names to such as "first" or "active"
    Dim Classes As List(Of String)

    ''//A StringBuild is just an efficient way to work with Strings
    ''//if you are not familiar with it just now that Append() is basically "&=" and AppenLine() is basically "&= ...\n"
    Dim Buf As New StringBuilder()
    Buf.AppendLine("     <ul>")

    ''//Walk the root child nodes, the N variable will be the current ChildNode of the SiteMap.RootNote
    For Each N As SiteMapNode In SiteMap.RootNode.ChildNodes

        ''//For the first and last child we want to add extra classes in case we need to adjust borders, padding, etc
        Classes = New List(Of String)
        If N.PreviousSibling Is Nothing Then
            Classes.Add("first")
        ElseIf N.NextSibling Is Nothing Then
            Classes.Add("last")
        End If

        ''//See if the page being requested is the current child or if the current page is descended from it so that we can mark it as active
        If SiteMap.CurrentNode IsNot Nothing Then
            If SiteMap.CurrentNode.Equals(N) OrElse SiteMap.CurrentNode.IsDescendantOf(N) Then
                Classes.Add("active")
            End If
        End If

        ''//This code below is just for outputting the <li class="..."><a href="...">...</a></li> code

        ''//Write the opening list tag
        Buf.Append("      <li")
        ''//If the above code created any CSS classes append the class attribute and the space-delimited list of classes
        If Classes.Count > 0 Then
            Buf.Append(" class=""" & Join(Classes.ToArray(), " ") & """")
        End If
        ''//Close the list tag
        Buf.Append(">")

        ''//Append the hyperlink. The "N" object is the current child of the SiteMap.RootNode.ChildNodes
        ''//All SiteMapNode objects have a Url property and a Title property which is defined in the XML file
        Buf.AppendFormat("<a href=""{0}"">{1}</a></li>", N.Url.Replace("/index.html", "/"), HttpUtility.HtmlEncode(N.Title))

        ''//Append a blank line, I like to keep my code formatted nicely
        Buf.AppendLine()
    Next

    ''//Append the closing list tag
    Buf.AppendLine("     </ul>")

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