You can use
y filter/.expression={y==0 ? nan : y}
in the options of \addplot.
\documentclass{article}
% ---------------------------------- tikz
\usepackage{pgfplots} % to print charts
\pgfplotsset{compat=1.12}
\begin{document}
\begin{figure}
\centering
\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis} [
% general
ybar,
scale only axis,
height=0.5\textwidth,
width=1.2\textwidth,
ylabel={\# Dots},
nodes near coords,
xlabel={Variation},
xticklabel style={
rotate=90,
anchor=east,
},
%enlarge x limits={abs value={3}},
]
\addplot+[y filter/.expression={y==0 ? nan : y}] table [
x=grade,
y=value,
] {
grade value
-11 0
-10 0
-9 0
-8 0
-7 0
-6 0
-5 3
-4 1
-3 2
-2 15
-1 11
0 179
1 8
2 1
3 0
4 1
5 2
6 0
7 0
8 0
9 0
10 0
11 0
};
\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{figure}
\end{document}
As is explained in How do I draw shapes inside a tikz node? pics can be used for defining new objects. My main problem using pics is how to place where you want because they aren't nodes and positioning them is not so easy.
Following code shows how to define EDFA block.
EDFA/.pic={
\begin{scope}[scale=.5]
\draw (-1,0) coordinate (in) -- (-1,1) -- (1,0) coordinate (out) -- (-1,-1) -- cycle;
\node[anchor=north,inner sep=2pt] at (0,-1) {$1$};
\end{scope}
In this case, coordinate (-1,0) will act as west anchor and 1,0 as east. Both point will have an special name for further reference. Every pic is placed according its own origin (0,0). You can use Claudio's answer to Anchoring TiKZ pics for better positioning.
As your example was simple, I'd prefer to star with EDFA and place Source and Sink after it.
\documentclass[]{article}
% tikz
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{positioning} %relative positioning
\begin{document}
\tikzset{%
EDFA/.pic={
\begin{scope}[scale=.5]
\draw (-1,0) coordinate (in) -- (-1,1) -- (1,0) coordinate (out) -- (-1,-1) -- cycle;
\node[anchor=north,inner sep=2pt] at (0,-1) {$1$};
\end{scope}
}
}
\begin{tikzpicture}[
block/.style={draw},
]
\draw pic (edfa) {EDFA};
\node[block, left=of edfain] (source) {Source};
\node[block, right= of edfaout] (sink) {Sink};
\draw[->] (source) -- (edfain);
\draw[->] (edfaout) -- (sink);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}
I understand that your components are more complex than EDFA because for this particular case an isosceles triangle node with a label will do the work and it can be used as a node and not as a pic:
\documentclass[]{article}
% tikz
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{positioning} %relative positioning
\usetikzlibrary{shapes.geometric}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}[
block/.style={draw},
edfa/.style={isosceles triangle, minimum width=1cm,
draw, anchor=west, isosceles triangle stretches,
minimum height=1cm, label=-80:#1}
]
\node[block] (source) {Source};
\node[edfa=1, right=of source] (edfa) {};
\node[block, right= of edfa] (sink) {Sink};
\draw[->] (source) -- (edfa);
\draw[->] (edfa) -- (sink);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}
Best Answer
You can draw the pins before the bar: