I want to setup a POST route in my api folder using next.js, And I'm sending the data to the route but I can't parse the data to actually save it in the database. what is the best way to handle POST routes in next.js. particularly parsing the data in JSON format?
As with everything, it depends. In Next.js v12, you do not need JSON.parse(req.body) in the API route as long as you have NOT explicitly set bodyParser: false in the exported configuration for the API route (see https://nextjs.org/docs/api-routes/api-middlewares). The req.body will be parsed automatically to an object for example if the content-type of the request is application/json. In this case since the content is pre-parsed into a object, trying to run JSON.parse(req.body) in the API will likely throw an error.