Form Validation prep functions do not work...

[gcoultrip]

(Codeigniter 3.x)
...this is because the Form Validation library runs prep functions (like trim(), strtolower() ... etc) on the $_POST array values.

Fix: Re-populate the $data array with the $_POST values after running form validation within MY_Model. This could be achieved by adding the following code to the MY_Model validate() method - after running form_validation->run() and before returning $data:

foreach($_POST as $key => $val)
{
    if (array_key_exists($key, $data))
    {
        $data[$key] = $val;
    }
}