>Assuming I know the name of a field and if it is numeric or not. With those two values, what would be the best way to extract the length and the decimal value of that field from the field structure?

I don't know about the BEST way, but this is A way:

fval = 3.0021
cfval = allt(strtr(str(y,10,18),"0"," "))
flen = len(cfval) &&includes decimal in count
fdecimal = flen - at(".",cfval)

Is this what you're looking for?