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[eluser]optimal[/eluser]
That's part of the solution. There's complete sample code in the "Setting Validation Rules" section located here:

http://ellislab.com/codeigniter/user-gui...ation.html

As it explains, after calling set_rules() you can check the output of $this->validation->run().

Or as you said you could just handle it in JavaScript (which you'll need to code separately and requires users to have JavaScript enabled).