best practice with form,validation,error,success,action order

[eluser]Michael Wales[/eluser]
Those statements don't prevent anything themselves, they are simply echoing out the data the framework is working with. If you have XSS Cleaning on - it will prevent XSS.

I am using the validation class, to do the following:
The Validation class first makes sure something was entered into the field (required).
Then it chops off white-space at the beginning and end (trim).
Then it runs MD5 encryption on the string.

All of the modifiers and rules available are within the Validation documentation.

I guess my point was simply: you can access the input a variety of methods. $this->input->post is not the only way, especially if using $_POST is going to save you 6 lines of typing. In the end, they all come out to exactly the same thing.