tikz sloped lines

I would like to draw lines at a specific angle with tikzpicture. But it doesn't work the way I think it should.

Example:

\documentclass[a4paper,12pt]{article}
\usepackage{tikz}

\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}
%\draw [help lines] (-3,-1) grid (9,7);
\coordinate (a) at (0,0) node at (a) {A};
\coordinate (c) at (0,5) node at (c) {C};
\draw (0,0) -- (0:2cm);
\draw (0,0) -- (30:3cm);
\draw (0,5) -- (0:2cm);
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}


the two lines from (0,0) does what I want, a line at 0 degrees from (0,0) to (2,0) and a line from the same point at an angle of 30 degrees with the length of 3 cm.

The line from point (0,5) does something else. I thought it should be parallel to the first line, that is, from (0,5) to (2,5) (0 degrees angle) but it ends in (2,0).

I have been looking in the pgf-manual section 13.1 (page 125).

But I think I need something more.

The problem is quite simply that polar coordinates are also relative to the origin, so (0:2cm) is the same as the point (2cm,0). To make the coordinate relative to the previous coordinate, add a + before it:

\draw (0,5) -- +(0:2cm);


This is described in section 13.4 Relative and Incremental Coordinates of the manual. You can also use two plus signs, which updates the current point.

\documentclass[a4paper,12pt]{article}
\usepackage{tikz}

\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}
%\draw [help lines] (-3,-1) grid (9,7);
\coordinate (a) at (0,0) node at (a) {A};
\coordinate (c) at (0,5) node at (c) {C};
\draw (0,0) -- (0:2cm);
\draw (0,0) -- (30:3cm);
\draw (0,5) -- +(0:2cm);
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}