[pygtk] Label width in chars ?

[Jérôme]

I don't understand how a label width can be specified in chars. 

Does this refer to a conventional width, that may depend on the font size ?

For instance, if I set a width of 10 chars, and I'm not using a monospace
font, there won't be the same amount of space left whether my string is
'..........' or 'mmmmmmmmmm'.

http://pygtk.org/docs/pygtk/class-gtklabel.html

"width-chars"	
Read-Write	
The desired width of the label, in characters. If this property is set to -1,
the width will be calculated automatically, otherwise the label will request
either 3 characters or the property value, whichever is greater. Allowed
values: >= -1. Default value: -1. Available in GTK+ 2.6 and above.

What am I missing, here ?

-- 
Jérôme