How to retrieve the dimensions of a view?

I have a view made up of TableLayout, TableRow and TextView. I want it to look like a grid. I need to get the height and width of this grid. The methods getHeight() and getWidth() always return 0. This happens when I format the grid dynamically and also when I use an XML version.

How to retrieve the dimensions for a view?

Here is my test program I used in Debug to check the results:

import android.app.Activity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.widget.TableLayout;
import android.widget.TextView;

public class appwig extends Activity {  
    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
      super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
      setContentView(R.layout.maindemo);  //<- includes the grid called "board"
      int vh = 0;   
      int vw = 0;

      //Test-1 used the xml layout (which is displayed on the screen):
      TableLayout tl = (TableLayout) findViewById(R.id.board);  
      tl = (TableLayout) findViewById(R.id.board);
      vh = tl.getHeight();     //<- getHeight returned 0, Why?  
      vw = tl.getWidth();     //<- getWidth returned 0, Why?   

      //Test-2 used a simple dynamically generated view:        
      TextView tv = new TextView(this);
      tv.setHeight(20);
      tv.setWidth(20);
      vh = tv.getHeight();    //<- getHeight returned 0, Why?       
      vw = tv.getWidth();    //<- getWidth returned 0, Why?

    } //eof method
} //eof class