Yii2 virtual attribute out of an attribute of a SqlDataProvider - yii2

Question

My AddressController:
public function actionIndex() {
$searchModel = new AddressSearch;
$dataProvider = $searchModel->search($_GET);
return $this->render('index', [
'dataProvider' => $dataProvider,
'searchModel' => $searchModel,
]);
}
My model AddressSearch:
class AddressSearch extends Model {
public function search($params) {
$dataProvider = new SqlDataProvider([
'sql' => '
SELECT
name
FROM...
View:
GridView::widget([
'dataProvider' => $dataProvider,
'filterModel' => $searchModel,
'columns' => [
'name2',
I have an attribute called name in this dataProvider. I would like to create a new virtual attribute called name2 out of name by preg_replace()-ing a few parts of it.
The function itself is working. I have tried a lot of different things, but I still can't make it to fill the attribute name2 with data. name2 is always empty. Can you please point me to the right direction? Many thanks!
UPDATE: based on the brilliant ideas of #Imaginaroom and #rob006 I've done the following:
moved getName2() and the attributes I'm filling with SqlDataProvider from base model Address to AddressSearch
deleted the empty base model Address because I don't need it anyway. Less is more!
in search() I've added:
foreach ($dataProvider->getModels() as $row) {
$model = new AddressSearch;
$model->setAttributes($row, false);
$models[] = $model;
}
$dataProvider->setModels($models);
It works! Many thanks guys! It's fantastic that you are there and help!!!

Answer 1

The problem is that you're using SqlDataProvider which returns rows from the table as array instead of model instance. So that's why your getter (virtual-attribute) does not work in GridView - GridView does not work on Address model instance, but on raw array without name2 field.
You should change your SearchModel to use ActiveQuery:
$dataProvider = ActiveDataProvider([
'query' => Address::find()->select(['name']) //and whatever your query contains besides this
])
...
UPDATE: If you don't want to do it like this, you can add your logic directly in GridView like so:
GridView::widget([
'dataProvider' => $dataProvider,
'filterModel' => $searchModel,
'columns' => [
[
'header' => 'Name 2',
'value' => function($model) {
if (isset($this->_name2)) {
return $this->_name2;
}
return $this->_name2 = preg_replace([...
}
]

Answer 2

If you really need Address model instance and use SqlDataProvider at the same time, you may convert array to model instance manually:
$models = [];
foreach ($dataProvider->getModels() as $row) {
$model = Address::instantiate($row);
Address::populateRecord($model, $row);
$models[] = $model;
}
$dataProvider->setModels($models);
You can place this in AddressSearch::search() or create custom SqlDataProvider and override prepareModels().