size of a string in pixel ?

Hi,

In my graphic layout, i'd like to set the dimensions of the
string-based components.

the thing is that in order to preserve the layout, I'd like to set the
component's size to its maximum
( eg. if the JtextField contains a Date, i'll set it to the size
necessary to hold "wednesday, december 25th" )

in order to compute this size, I need to translate number of characters
to pixels. ( taking into account the fonts )

How can I do this ?

--Philippe

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