How does one make QFileDialog.AnyFile work?

Question

Per the PyQt5 docs, specifying QFileDialog.AnyFile should eliminate the requirement that the specified file already exist. But, this doesn't appear to work. Am I doing something wrong, or is this a feature that no longer works? Here's my code:

import os

from PyQt5 import QtGui, QtCore
from PyQt5.QtWidgets import QApplication, QFileDialog, QWidget


class App(QWidget):
    def __init__(self):
        super().__init__()
        self.title = "QFileDialog.AnyFile doesn't work."
        self.left = 10
        self.top = 30
        self.width = 320
        self.height = 200

        self.setWindowTitle(self.title)
        self.setGeometry(self.left, self.top, self.width, self.height)

        dlg= QFileDialog()
        dlg.setFileMode(QFileDialog.AnyFile)
        fname, _= dlg.getOpenFileName(parent=self, directory=os.getcwd(),
          caption='Select a file')
        self.show()


if __name__ == '__main__':
   import sys

   app = QApplication(sys.argv)
   ex = App()

   sys.exit(app.exec_())

Answer 1

You have the following misconceptions:

• QFileDialog::getOpenFileName() is a static method that does not use the "dlg" object but creates a new QFileDialog so setting or modifying any "dlg" property will not influence the QFileDialog that will be displayed.

• The function QFileDialog::getOpenFileName() aims to obtain the name of an existing file as indicated in the docs, sso the fileMode it has set is QFileDialog::ExistingFile, so modifying that behavior is contradictory.

This is a convenience static function that returns an existing file selected by the user. If the user presses Cancel, it returns a null string.

_{(emphasis mine)}

---

So if you want to get the name of a file even if it does not exist then you must use the static method QFileDialog::getSaveFileName() as indicated in the docs:

This is a convenience static function that will return a file name selected by the user. The file does not have to exist.

_{(emphasis mine)}

fname, _ = QFileDialog.getSaveFileName(
    parent=self, directory=os.getcwd(), caption="Select a file"
)