Well, as for padding, while editing a numeric control you can go to Format and precision... subpanel and set the desired panning value: if the number is smallest that this size it will pannel with 0s to the left. Be careful: number of digits includes digits to the right of decimal separator. Remember that padding is only a representation issue: control value will remain the same even if padded to several digits.
The size of the control value can be obtained formatting it into a string and getting its value but I don't know how much this will impact on your algorithm (I suppose you are in look for efficiency...).
