Unknown characters added to meta data values

Question

I am trying to import post meta through the REST API. I have the meta value set on the parent site, but when I import the post to the child site there are additional characters added to the value.

Here is the JSON representation of the post meta from the parent site:

 "post-meta-fields": {
            "_edit_lock": [
                "1498250457:1"
            ],
            "_edit_last": [
                "1"
            ],
            "color": [
                "#4298f4"
            ],
            "_thumbnail_id": [
                "6"
            ]
        },

And here is the meta data after import to the child site:

"post-meta-fields": {
            "city_name": [
                "city_Columbus"
            ],
            "import": [
                "import"
            ],
            "color": [
                "a:1:{i:0;s:7:\"#4298f4\";}"
            ]
        }

And finally, here is the cod I use to import:

function create_import_post_from_url($url, $post_args, $city_name ) {
$post_url = file_get_contents($url);
  $post_data = json_decode($post_url, true); 

  foreach($post_data as $article_array ) {
      $title = $article_array['title']['rendered'];
      if (!post_exists($title) ){
    if( empty($post_args)) {
        $post_args = array(
        'post_author' => $article_array['author'],
        'post_content' => $article_array['content']['rendered'],
        'post_content_filtered' => '',
        'post_title' => $article_array['title']['rendered'],
        'post_excerpt' =>  $article_array['excerpt']['rendered'],
        'post_status' =>  $article_array['status'],
        'post_type' =>  $article_array['type'],
        'comment_status' =>  $article_array['comment_status'],
        'ping_status' =>  $article_array['ping_status'],
        'post_password' =>$article_array['post_password'],
        'to_ping' => $article_array['to_ping'],
        'pinged' => $article_array['pinged'],
        'post_parent' =>  $article_array['post_parent'],
        'menu_order' => $article_array['menu_order'],
        'guid' => $article_array['guid']['rendered'],
        'import_id' => 0,
        'context' => '',
        'meta_input' => array(
       'city_name' => $city_name,
       'import' => 'import',
       'color' => $article_array['post-meta-fields']['color'],
)
        );

    }
     wp_insert_post($post_args, $wp_error);
      }

    }

}

I have not been able to find any info on this issue online, so any help is appreciated!

Answer 1

The answer was that I was not referencing the 0 index of the json post-meta-fields array. It was trying to return an array instead of just the string.

Instead of

 'color' => $article_array['post-meta-fields']['color']

I needed

'color' => $article_array['post-meta-fields']['color'][0]