Save pound symbol to database

[eluser]jmadsen[/eluser]
I'm not sure what the problem is, but have you considered a quick rewrite to:

$sql = "INSERT INTO competition_answers (competition_id, question_id, user_id, answer) VALUES (?, ?, ?, ?)";
$query = $this->db->query($sql, array($competition_id, $question_id, $user_id, $answer));


(if you don't like Active Record)


Might save you lots of time looking for something obscure to just let it work the way it wants to.