[eluser]bretticus[/eluser]
Yeah, I was looking for a "optional" or something but I also thought a trim would do the trick. So I actually did that just a min or two ago (glad you confirmed my thought process.) I was going to make a helper function, but I'd rather control whether the field becomes required (probably never will be) in the controller in the future and not have to change convention for designers.
Thanks for the reply.
EDIT:
I should mention. Just experimenting, adding a rule with just the input name seems to do the trick also...
Code:
$this->form_validation->set_rules('referredby');