TikZ arrow tip is displaced

Question

My quetion is twofold:

1) I want to have a timeline graph with some intervalls. This is my code:

\draw[->|] (8,5)--(10,5);
\node[] (sh4) at (9.5,5.5){$s^{\text{h}}_{4}$};
\draw[|<-] (10,5)--(13,5);
\node[] (stt4) at (11,5.5){$STT_{4}$};

The result looks like this:

The problem is the bold vertical line of the arrow tip. They should be exactly at the same position, such that the vartical line is thinner.

2) How can I make the arrow tips like -]? The following is not working. Seems like one must escape the ]:

\draw[-]] (8,5)--(10,5);

Answer 1

Previous versions of this answer used the now deprecated arrows library. The newer (but at this point old) arrows.meta library allows for a very easy solution for your first problem. The old answer can be find in the history. We'll be using Bar instead of | and Bracket instead of ], however, we will define | and ] as shorthands again (via the .tip handler).

The arrows are usually defined in a way so that they touch the point they point to. You want the | arrow parts to extend over that point. You can either use shorten >=-.5\pgflinewidth or, more comfortably, a slightly changed definition of the arrow tips. In the code below, this is denoted by the ' behind the shorthand.

Since ] will be a troublemaker in many places for options we can simply define a(nother) shorthand.

Code

\documentclass[tikz,border=1pt]{standalone}
\usetikzlibrary{arrows.meta}
\tikzset{
  |-|/.tip   = Bar[],
  |'-|'/.tip ={Bar[sep=0pt -.5 1]},
  [-]/.tip   = Bracket[],
  ['-]'/.tip ={Bracket[sep=0pt -.5 1]},
  (-)/.tip   = Parenthesis[],
  ('-)'/.tip ={Parenthesis[sep=0pt -.5 1]},
  % aliases
  brack/.tip  = ],
  brack'/.tip = ]',
}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}[
  >=To,
  p/.pic={\draw[pic actions](left:.3)--(0,0);\draw[pic actions](right:.3)--(0,0);}
]
\matrix[
  row sep=1mm,
  row 1/.style={nodes={anchor=base,font=\scriptsize}},
  column 2/.style={shorten >=+-.5\pgflinewidth}
]{
  \node{normal}; & \node{shortening}; & \node{new tip}; \\
  \pic[->|]   {p}; & \pic[->|]   {p}; & \pic[->.|']  {p}; \\
  \pic[-{]}]  {p}; & \pic[-{]}]  {p}; & \pic[-{]'}]  {p}; \\
  \pic[-brack]{p}; & \pic[-brack]{p}; & \pic[-brack']{p}; \\
  \pic[-)]    {p}; & \pic[-)]    {p}; & \pic[-)']    {p}; \\
};
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

Output