Often, when drawing block diagrams i want to add an 'input' to a node with a perpendicular line (drawn in red below).
Is there a way to achieve this in a robust way without using calc, etc.? Ideally i want to use something like \draw (input) -| (node).
\begin{tikzpicture}
\node[draw,minimum height=4cm,minimum width=1cm] (node) at (0,0) {ABC};
\draw[->] (-2,1) node[anchor=east] {Some input 1} -- (node);
\draw[->,red] (-2,-1) node[anchor=east] {Some input 2} -- +(1.5,0);
\end{tikzpicture}
You can use the -| and |- operators to form coordinates. Here, you could provide the y value explicity with n.east by naming the node containing Some input 2 as n. Another way is to use the to path operation which automatically sets \tikztostart to the start coordinate of the to operation:
\documentclass[tikz, border=2mm]{standalone}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\node[draw, minimum height=4cm, minimum width=1cm] (node) at (0,0) {ABC};
\draw[->] (-2,1) node[anchor=east] {Some input 1} -- (node);
\draw[->, red] (-2,-1) node[anchor=east] {Some input 2}
to (\tikztostart -| node.west);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}
To address some comments, the following shows that the problem is not well-defined with “general shapes”:
\documentclass[tikz, border=2mm]{standalone}
\usetikzlibrary{calc, shapes.misc}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\node[draw, minimum height=2cm,
rounded rectangle, rounded rectangle west arc=concave] (n) {Some stuff};
\node[circle, inner sep=1.5pt] (foo) at (n.west) {foo};
\draw[red!60!black, ->]
let \p1=($(n.north)-(n.center)$) in
(foo) foreach \angle in {-90, -75, ..., 90} { edge +(\angle:\y1) };
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}
So, you have a rotated rectangular node and still want to play? The TikZ calc library can orthogonally project a point p on a line (ab) with its ($(a)!(p)!(b)$) syntax:
\documentclass[tikz, border=1mm]{standalone}
\usetikzlibrary{calc}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\node[draw, rotate=30] (n) {Some stuff};
\node[draw] (foo) at (-1,0.5) {foo bar};
\foreach \anch in {270, 300, 320, 330, 337, 350} {
\draw[very thin, ->] (foo.\anch) --
($(n.north west)!(foo.\anch)!(n.north east)$);
}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}
-- (node) is enough because lines that go through the center of a circle are perpendicular to the circle. For any shape in general, I'm afraid I don't have much to offer, except to say this is not well defined: there can very well be several points that satisfy the perpendicularity condition.
-- (node) will not go horizontal to the circle. See also my answer.
Commented
Aug 8, 2021 at 17:55
Complementary to the very good answer from frougon, if you don't want to use the \tikztostart macro (which is perfectly fine), you can also name the node containing Some input 2 (here, by aux) and use this name in the construction of the intersecting point (aux-|node.west). This is sometime useful when drawing multiple broken lines.
\documentclass[tikz,border=3.14mm]{standalone}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\node[draw,minimum height=4cm,minimum width=1cm] (node) at (0,0) {ABC};
\draw[->] (-2,1) node[anchor=east] {Some input 1} -- (node);
\draw[->,red] (-2,-1) node[anchor=east] (aux) {Some input 2} -- (aux-|node.west);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}
The output is the same.
This is a stupid answer:
\documentclass[tikz]{standalone}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\node[draw,circle, minimum height=4cm,minimum width=1cm] (node) at (0,0) {ABC};
\draw[<-] (node.120) -- +(-2,0) node[anchor=east] {Some input 1};
\draw[<-] (node.150) -- +(-2,0) node[anchor=east] {Some input 2};
\draw[<-] (node.190) -- +(-2,0) node[anchor=east] {Some input 3};
\draw[<-] (node.240) -- +(-2,0) node[anchor=east] {Some input 4};
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}
This method works, even if the "ABC" node is not rectangular. -but the huge problem is that the position of the input node is not set by an explicit coordinate.
