TikZ intersection not found

Question

I ran into the following problem: Constructing a path using "plot", I fail to find intersections that fall exactly onto the coordinates used to construct that path. In the example below, the 2nd intersection is only found when I move the rectangle so that it intersects the plot path before or after the x=4.

This looks a bit to me like the "plot" path would actually not be a single path but segments that are joined, and that the intersection is not found at the points where the segments are linked.

Is this intended, or might it be a bug?

\documentclass{standalone}

\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{shapes,intersections,scopes,calc,positioning}

\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}[scale=1, transform shape]
    \tikzstyle{dot}=[fill=blue,circle,inner sep=.3ex]
    \draw[name path=b,yellow] (2cm,-.5cm) rectangle (4.0cm,2); %3.9cm works 
        \draw [name path=p, blue, thick]
            plot [smooth] coordinates { (0,0) (1,.1) (2,1) (3,1) (4,0.1) (5,0) };
        \path [name intersections={of=b and p}]
            (intersection-1) node[dot] {}
            (intersection-2) node[dot] {};           
\end{tikzpicture} 
\end{document}

Answer 1

interestingly! just omit units in coordinates, i.e.: instead of (4.0cm,2) use (4.0,2) or shorter (4,2) and your code will work as expected:

\documentclass[margin=3mm]{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{shapes,intersections,scopes,calc,positioning}

\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}[scale=1, transform shape]
    \tikzstyle{dot}=[fill=blue,circle,inner sep=.3ex]
    \draw[name path=b,yellow] (2cm,-.5cm) rectangle (4,2);
        \draw [name path=p, blue, thick]
            plot [smooth] coordinates { (0,0) (1,.1) (2,1) (3,1) (4,0.1) (5,0) };
        \path [name intersections={of=b and p}]
            (intersection-1) node[dot] {}
            (intersection-2) node[dot] {};
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}