title: HTML select Tag Title using Codeigniter 3
body: <p>I'm using Codeigniter 3.<br>
  The countries select box is an optional field on a form:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;select name="countries"&gt;
      &lt;option&gt;Choose a Country&lt;/option&gt;
      &lt;option value="en"&gt;England&lt;/option&gt;
      &lt;option value="fr"&gt;France&lt;/option&gt;
      &lt;option value="de"&gt;Germany&lt;/option&gt;
  &lt;/select&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I have the following line for the countries field validation:</p>
  
  <pre><code>$this-&gt;form_validation-&gt;set_rules('year',  'Year',    'trim|integer');
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>When I submit the form with the 1st option (Choose a Country), even without a value defined the validator sees something like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>echo '&lt;pre&gt;';
  print_r($this-&gt;input-&gt;post('year'));
  echo '&lt;/pre&gt;';
  
  &gt;&gt; Choose a Country
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>.. when I am expecting something like false or null.<br>
  How can I make CI ignore the value when there isn't one selected?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks in advance!</p>