I had not created a SAX listener before in Ruby.  So, my solution reads the vendor list in f
rom XML.  I noticed others were using this pastie thingy... I don't know what that is.  Besi
des, pasties always seemed to be kind of pointless to me.  They leave precious little to the
 imagination.  So, below is the ruby file followed by the xml file:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#!/usr/local/bin/ruby -w
require 'rexml/parsers/sax2parser'
require 'rexml/sax2listener'

class VendorListener
  include REXML::SAX2Listener

  def initialize(low, high)
    begin
      @low = Float(low)
    rescue
      @low = 0
    end
    
    begin
      @high = Float(high)
    rescue
      #if someone can spend more than this then
      #they can afford a better program
      @high = 10**15
    end
  end
  
  def start_element(uri, localname, tag_name, attrs)
    if tag_name == 'Vendor'
      @vendorName = attrs['name']
    end
  end

  def end_element(uri, localname, tag_name)
    if tag_name == 'Vendor'
      if in_range?
        puts @vendorName
      end
    elsif tag_name == 'LowPrice'
      @lowPrice = Float(@data)
    elsif tag_name == 'HighPrice'
      @highPrice = Float(@data)
    end
  end

  def characters(value)
    @data = value
  end

  def in_range?
    (@low > = @lowPrice and @low <= @highPrice) or
      (@high > = @lowPrice and @high <= @highPrice) or
      (@low < @lowPrice and @high >  @highPrice)
  end
end

puts "Enter a price range."
print "Enter low value: "
low = gets
print "Enter high value: "
high = gets

parser = REXML::Parsers::SAX2Parser.new(File.new('vendors.xml' ))
parser.listen(VendorListener.new(low, high))
parser.parse

puts "Program terminated."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> 
<Vendors> 
    <Vendor name="Company A"> 
        <PriceRange> 
            <LowPrice> 1000</LowPrice>
            <HighPrice> 3000</HighPrice>
        </PriceRange> 
    </Vendor> 
    <Vendor name="Company B"> 
        <PriceRange> 
            <LowPrice> 6000</LowPrice>
            <HighPrice> 10000</HighPrice>
        </PriceRange> 
    </Vendor> 
    <Vendor name="Company C"> 
        <PriceRange> 
            <LowPrice> 500</LowPrice>
            <HighPrice> 2500</HighPrice>
        </PriceRange> 
    </Vendor> 
</Vendors> 


_________________________________________________________________
Make every e-mail and IM count. Join the i�m Initiative from Microsoft.
http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/Join/Default.aspx?source=EML_WL_ MakeCount