array in controller not recognized in rest of class' functions?

[eluser]ScottBruin[/eluser]
Thank you for your response, Michael.

I'm now getting another error from the helper function that calls $this->rules.

Here's the function:

Code:

function userules_forinput($rules)
{
    // Pass an array of CI rules to this function and it will return
    // them formatted as [formname] => [value] in an array
    
    $CI =& get_instance();
    foreach($rules as $key => $value)
    {
        $item = $CI->input->post($key,TRUE); // takes $rules array and uses its keys to get the $_POST values; "true" runs these through xss_clean
        $item = trim($item);
        $input[$key] = $item;
    }
    return $input;  // *** ERROR for this line, variable undefined
}

I won't lie, I'm not quite sure what $Ci =& get_instance() does. I saw it on this forum and it fixed my problem, but my understanding of OOP is poor.