Moving a label along the path

Question

Friends, consider the following code:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{automata,positioning}

\begin{document}

\pagestyle{empty}

\begin{tikzpicture}[shorten >=1pt,node distance=2cm,on grid,auto,/tikz/initial text=] 
   \node[state,initial] (q_0) {$q_0$};
   \node[state] (q_2) [above of=q_0] {$q_2$};
   \node[state] (q_1) [left of=q_2] {$q_1$};
   \node[state] (q_3) [right of=q_2] {$q_3$};
   \node[state] (q_5) [right of=q_0] {$q_5$};
   \node[state] (q_4) [left of=q_0] {$q_4$};   
   \node[state] (q_7) [below of=q_0] {$q_7$};
   \node[state] (q_6) [left of=q_7] {$q_6$};
   \node[state] (q_8) [right of=q_7] {$q_8$};

   \path[->,every node/.style={font=\scriptsize}]
    (q_0) edge [bend left=15] node {$a$} (q_2)
    (q_2) edge [bend left=15] node {$b$} (q_0)
    (q_0) edge [bend left=15] node {$c$} (q_5)
    (q_5) edge [bend left=15] node {$d$} (q_0)
    (q_0) edge [bend left=15] node {$e$} (q_7)
    (q_7) edge [bend left=15] node {$f$} (q_0)
    (q_0) edge [bend left=15] node {$g$} (q_4)
    (q_4) edge [bend left=15] node {$h$} (q_0)
    (q_0) edge [bend left=15] node {$i$} (q_1)
    (q_1) edge [bend left=15] node {$j$} (q_0)
    (q_0) edge [bend left=15] node {$k$} (q_3)
    (q_3) edge [bend left=15] node {$l$} (q_0)
    (q_0) edge [bend left=15] node {$m$} (q_8)
    (q_8) edge [bend left=15] node {$n$} (q_0)
    (q_0) edge [bend left=15] node {$o$} (q_6)
    (q_6) edge [bend left=15] node {$p$} (q_0);  
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

which gives us the following output:

So far, so good (believe me, there are worse drawings).

I was wondering if it's possible to move the labels to an arbitrary position along the path, that is:

The workaround I found was to draw a path without a label and then \draw the texts in the proper absolute positions. I was trying to achieve something like this:

I'm a TikZ newbie, so bear with me. I'm sure there are better approaches than the one I used. Any ideas? :-)

Answer 1

You can use options such as [midway], [near start] and [near end], [very near end] to specify the location of the label.

(q_0) edge [bend left=15] node [red, near end] {$a$} (q_2)
(q_2) edge [bend left=15] node [blue, near start]{$b$} (q_0)
(q_0) edge [bend left=15] node [green, near end] {$c$} (q_5)
(q_0) edge [bend left=15] node [red, very near end] {$k$} (q_3)

As Gonzalo pointed out, these are documented on Page 193 of the manual and correspond as follows:

at start pos=0

very near start pos=0.125

near start pos=0.25

very near end pos=0.875

near end pos=0.75

at end pos=1

Answer 2

It is much simpler than you might think. For example replace your first edge with this:

 (q_0) edge [bend left=15] node[pos=0.8] {$a$} (q_2)

And play around with 0.8 number between zero and one.

Answer 3

In your example, alternately use near end and near start:

(q_0) edge [bend left=15] node [near end] {$a$} (q_2)
(q_2) edge [bend left=15] node [near start] {$b$} (q_0)