Server not properly receiving POST request from ASIFormDataRequest in Objective-C - objective-c

Question

I'm trying to use an ASIFormDataRequest in my iPhone application to send a video I have just recorded to a server, along with a string that I can use to ID who the video belongs to. The code for doing so is here:
-(void)imagePickerController:(UIImagePickerController *)picker didFinishPickingMediaWithInfo:(NSDictionary *)info {
NSURL *urlvideo = [info objectForKey:UIImagePickerControllerMediaURL];
NSString *urlString=[urlvideo path];
NSLog(#"urlString=%#",urlString);
NSString *str = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"http://www.mysite.com/videodata.php"];
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString:[str stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];
ASIFormDataRequest *request = [ASIFormDataRequest requestWithURL:url];
NSData *patientData = [_patientCode dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
[request setFile:urlString forKey:#"video"];
[request setData:patientData forKey:#"patientcode"];
[request setRequestMethod:#"POST"];
[request setDelegate:self];
[request startSynchronous];
NSLog(#"responseStatusCode: %i",[request responseStatusCode]);
NSLog(#"responseString: %#",[request responseString]);
[picker dismissViewControllerAnimated:YES completion:nil];
}
Everything seems to work correctly, I get back a status code of 200 and the method finishes as expected. However, nothing seems to be received by the php file on the server. I added this line to my server-side php code:
echo(count($_POST));
This returns 0, so it seems as though nothing is actually getting posted by the ASIFormDataRequest. I feel like there might be some simple step I am missing as I have never used the ASIFormDataRequest before, but any help would be greatly appreciated.
EDIT: I changed the setData:patientData to setPostValue:_patientCode and now that part of the post is getting sent correctly, so it seems as though setPostValue works but setData and setFile do not.

Answer 1

You should use -addData:forKey: and -addFile:forKey: instead of -setData:forKey: and -setFile:forKey:.
Other than that, check the debug output when you compile with DEBUG_FORM_DATA_REQUEST.
You should be sending a multipart/form-data request when using -addFile:forKey: and a application/x-www-form-urlencoded request when using -addPostValue:forKey:.
Does your server handle multipart/form-data requests?

Answer 2

I ended up finding the answer while reading something else and noticing that they did something interesting: The file I uploaded was simply going into the $_FILES array, not the $_POST array. I also changed [request setData:patientData forKey:#"patientcode"]; to [request setPostValue:_patientCode forKey:#"patientCode"]; and then that appeared in the $_POST array as I wanted so I was able to get both the string I was sending and the file I was sending in my php script.