Using Codeigniter Escape function

Question

I have recently added a comments section to a blog. Codeigniter says to always escape data before putting it into the Db.(I do have xss clean on fulltime). Some people say all active record operations are escaped. Am I wasting my time using escape on the function below?

Using the function below I escape the data, but it all comes out into the view escaped. How do you "un-escape" data so it will be readable without the ' '? I dont want to use a regex to delete every '' in case its used in a sentence

I guess my real question is, are active records always escaped or not?

ie: Author comes out 'Name'

 function comment_insert()
{
$data = array
(
    'entry_id' => $this->db->escape($this->input->post('entry_id')),
    'ip' => $this->db->escape($this->input->post('ip')),
    'date' => $this->input->post('date'),
    'comment' => $this->db->escape($this->input->post('comment')),
    'author' => $this->db->escape($this->input->post('author')),
    'email' => $this->db->escape($this->input->post('email'))
);

$this->form_validation->set_rules('ip', 'IP', 'required|trim|valid_ip');//check
$this->form_validation->set_rules('entry_id', 'Entry ID', 'required|trim|numeric');
$this->form_validation->set_rules('date', 'Date', 'required|trim');
$this->form_validation->set_rules('comment', 'Comment',   'required|trim|max_length[600]');
$this->form_validation->set_rules('author', 'Name',  'required|trim|alpha_dash');
$this->form_validation->set_rules('email', 'Email', 'required|trim|valid_email');

if ($this->form_validation->run() == TRUE) 
{
    $this->db->limit(1);
    $this->db->insert('comments', $data);
    redirect('main/blog_view/'.$_POST['entry_id']);
} else 
{
   redirect('main/blog_view/'.$_POST['entry_id']);
}   
}

Thank you

Answer 1

According to the CodeIgniter User guide for the Active Record functions in the Database Class: http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/database/active_record.html

Beyond simplicity, a major benefit to using the Active Record features is that it allows you to create database independent applications, since the query syntax is generated by each database adapter. It also allows for safer queries, since the values are escaped automatically by the system. (emphasis added)

So yes, you're wasting your time. As long as you use Active Record, your data are automatically escaped.