Custom Walker: how to get ID in function start_lvl

I just had to do this in one of my themes… Since you don’t have access to the $item variable at that stage of the Walker, you would want to store your current item in a more global scope at the moment you do have access to it. The following code will make more sense… note: I’ve stripped everything but the relevant code.

class ThemeTruck_Nav_Walker extends Walker_Nav_Menu {
   private $curItem;

  // retrieve the curItem
  function start_lvl(&$output, $depth = 0, $args = array()) {
    var_dump($this->curItem );
  }

  // store the curItem
  function start_el(&$output, $item, $depth = 0, $args = array(), $id = 0) {
    $this->curItem = $item;
  }

 }