I am not sure whether this is a desired result, but when I have input in the following form
<script whatever text strings follow >
retrieving the following
$this->input->post('the_field', TRUE);
will return an empty string but it passes the validation rule ‘required’. I tested the following string
<script some valid search strings
<script asdfjasdklfjasdklfj als>
to search in this forum and I get error for search terms that are too short
