# Why does the edge path operation create a spurious arrow head?

The following code

\documentclass[tightpage]{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\begin{document}
\resizebox{20cm}{3cm}{

\begin{tikzpicture}[scale=40]
\node (aaa)  {AAA};
\draw [->] (aaa.east) edge [out=-30, in=-150]  (aaa.west);
\end{tikzpicture}

\begin{tikzpicture}
\node (aaa)  {AAA};
\draw [->] (aaa.east) to   [out=-30, in=-150]  (aaa.west);
\end{tikzpicture}}

\end{document}


compiles to the result shown here:

The only difference in the source of the two pictures is that the first uses edge where the second uses to.

What causes the spurious arrow head on the right side of the first picture? How can I get rid of the spurious arrow head?

Note: this is a minimal example extracted from a larger problem. I am using edge because I want to annotate the arrow.

edge creates an additional path, which inherits the attributes of its parent by default. So, here, you have your main path from (aaa.east) to (aaa.east) and a second path from (aaa.east) to (aaa.west). If you don't want the main path to have an arrow, add the -> to the options for the edge rather than the main path.

\documentclass[border=10pt]{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\node (aaa)  {AAA};
\draw  (aaa.east) edge [out=-30, in=-150, ->]  (aaa.west);
\end{tikzpicture}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\node (aaa)  {AAA};
\draw [->] (aaa.east) to   [out=-30, in=-150]  (aaa.west);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}


• Using \path rather than \draw (as suggested by @esdd in the comment under the original question, and explained in the linked question) also works. – jacg Apr 5 '17 at 22:52
• @jacg Yes. Because then the main path is not drawn at all, so obviously the arrow is not drawn either. It depends what you need. There are other ways around this again e.g. overriding the arrow for a single edge, but keeping it for the main path and other edges, or adding it for all edges on the path or on all paths, but not using it for the main path or any main paths. The possibilities are several. – cfr Apr 5 '17 at 22:58