How to make the border of a tikz "path picture" block dashed?

Question

I found this beautiful code online which draws a saturation block that can be used e.g. in circuitikz. Here is a MWE.

\documentclass[border=0pt]{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{shapes,arrows,positioning}
\usepackage[siunitx,europeanresistors]{circuitikz}
\tikzset{%
  saturation block/.style={%
    draw,
    path picture={
      % Get the width and height of the path picture node
      \pgfpointdiff{\pgfpointanchor{path picture bounding box}{north east}}%
        {\pgfpointanchor{path picture bounding box}{south west}}
      \pgfgetlastxy\x\y
      % Scale the x and y vectors so that the range
      % -1 to 1 is slightly shorter than the size of the node
      \tikzset{x=\x.4, y=\y.4}
      %
      % Draw annotation
      \draw (-1,0) -- (1,0) (0,-1) -- (0,1); 
      \draw (-1,-.7) -- (-.7,-.7) -- (.7,.7) -- (1,.7);
    }
  }
}
\begin{document}
\begin{circuitikz}
    \draw (0,0) node[saturation block, minimum size=1cm] (sat1) {};
\end{circuitikz}
\end{document}

How can I modify this code such that the border (and only the border) of this block is dashed?

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 18 '21 at 13:32

If you use dashed for the node, this is inherited by the internal drawing. You can override it by using solid.

\documentclass[border=2pt]{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{shapes,arrows,positioning}
\usepackage[siunitx,europeanresistors]{circuitikz}
\tikzset{%
  saturation block/.style={%
    draw,
    path picture={
      % Get the width and height of the path picture node
      \pgfpointdiff{\pgfpointanchor{path picture bounding box}{north east}}%
        {\pgfpointanchor{path picture bounding box}{south west}}
      \pgfgetlastxy\x\y
      % Scale the x and y vectors so that the range
      % -1 to 1 is slightly shorter than the size of the node
      \tikzset{x=\x.4, y=\y.4}
      %
      % Draw annotation
      \draw[solid] (-1,0) -- (1,0) (0,-1) -- (0,1); 
      \draw[solid] (-1,-.7) -- (-.7,-.7) -- (.7,.7) -- (1,.7);
    }
  }
}
\begin{document}
\begin{circuitikz}
    \draw (0,0) node[saturation block, densely dashed, minimum size=1cm] (sat1) {};
\end{circuitikz}
\end{document}

(With densely dashed the output is better in my opinion).

Perfect solution. Thank you so much! – snuff Mar 18 '21 at 15:21 — snuff, Mar 18 '21 at 15:21

How to make the border of a tikz "path picture" block dashed?

1 Answers1