Draw to anchor of new node at coordinate in TikZ

Question

Is there a way to directly draw to a new node, specifying the connection anchor but still center the node at the new coordinates.

To exemplify:

% Points at center of node
\draw (root) -- (1,1) node {};

% Connects to north but moves down node
\draw (root) -- (1,1) node[anchor=north] {};

Is there a way to connect to the north anchor and keep the node at (1,1) in a single command?

Answer 1

(1,1) node[anchor=north] {} tells tikz to place the node at (1,1), but with its north anchor. So its center will be below that point.

To position the node at (1,1) and draw a line to the north anchor of the node, position a named node, e.g. mynode, at (1,1) and draw to mynode.north.

\node[draw] (root) {}; % at (0,0)
\node[draw] (mynode) at (1,1) {};
\draw (root) -- (mynode.north);

You can put it into a single command like this:

\draw (1,1) node[draw] (mynode) {} (root) -- (mynode.north);