Percent of a line

Question

I hope this is not considered a cross post. My original message was at http://forum.java.sun.com/thread.jspa?threadID=617032 but I've finally narrowed down my problem.
I have a linked list of lines (Line2D.Double) that are connected together. These lines represent a path for a character that exists between a dot and a mark in a text pane.
Is there a way to somehow get a quantitive number that represents the total size of the line list. I need this in order to determine what position the character should be at on the path based on the current caret position.
Earlier, I accomplished this by getting the path's pixels, but this caused a memory leak. Can anyone suggest another way?

Answer 1

Before, I had a pixelsList that contained the individual pixels of every line that is in the lineList. As I add or remove a line, this pixelsList wiould be updated. This allowed me to use the following numbers in order to determine which pixel needed to be drawn as well as where the character needed to be drawn on the line:
        double numberOfChars = currentCharacter.getCurrentMovement().getMark() -
            currentCharacter.getCurrentMovement().getDot();
        double currentPosition = mainFrame.getScriptFrame().getTextPane().
            getCaretPosition() - currentCharacter.getCurrentMovement().getDot();
        double totalPixelSize = currentCharacter.getCurrentMovement().
            getPixelsList().size();
        double incrementAmount = numberOfChars / totalPixelSize;As you see, since I can no longer use the increment amount to move the character along the line because of the memory problems with the pixelsList so I need some other quantitative way in which to not only draw the lines (based on their endpoints) but also to draw the character both 1.) on the appropriate line, and 2.) at a specific position on the line. For example let's say I know that the caret is 60% between the character's dot and mark. I need to somehow determine where 60% is on the character's path which is of course made up of multiple lines.
Have a look at http://49web.uncc.edu/~crblack/screenshot.jpg
Although it may not look like it Bob is actually in the middle of his movement.
Thanks again for taking the time out to help.