General Text Metrics Requirement

SVG List,

I haven't followed all details of the recently
accelerated discussions, but would like to state
a simple requirement I hope SVG will support:

The ability to obtain metrics on a text string,
in prevailing units such as pixels or points or picas,
before rendering it.  Length, maximum ascent/descent would
do, and length of a substring. 

For example, rendering a mathematical fraction properly
(without MathML) would requre such.  

It was my understanding that SVG 1.0 did not allow this easily,
requiring escape into script+DOM to obtain these metrics. 

-Allen Razdow