reading xml files in vb6

You can do it with MSXML, which offers similar functionality as some of the .NET XML APIs. I don't have a copy of VB6 right now, but it's pretty easy. First, add a reference to MSXML from you VB6 project. You would then do something like the following:

• Create an instance of MSXML2.DOMDocument
• Call the Load method to parse the XML file
• Call the selectNodes("/Report/Categories/Category"). This will return an IXMLDOMNodeList object.
• You can then loop through the node list retrieving each IXMLDOMNode via item or nextNode.
• You can then get the name and value using the attributes property of the XMLDOMNode or using selectSingleNode("@name").Text and selectSingleNode("@value").Text

MSXML is fairly flexible, so there is even shorter syntax that you can use, but the above should work out for you. If you have not already figured it out, I will post the code when I get to a machine with VB6 installed.

UDPATE:

Here is a working example using the XML sample you provided.

Sub ParseXmlDocument()
   Dim doc As New MSXML2.DOMDocument
   Dim success As Boolean

   success = doc.Load(App.Path & "\test.xml")
   If success = False Then
      MsgBox doc.parseError.reason
   Else
      Dim nodeList As MSXML2.IXMLDOMNodeList

      Set nodeList = doc.selectNodes("/Report/Categories/Category")

      If Not nodeList Is Nothing Then
         Dim node As MSXML2.IXMLDOMNode
         Dim name As String
         Dim value As String

         For Each node In nodeList
            ' Could also do node.attributes.getNamedItem("name").text
            name = node.selectSingleNode("@name").Text
            value = node.selectSingleNode("@value").Text
         Next node
      End If
   End If
End Sub

Use MSXML as advised in this question (and in the article linked by Ardman).

You can use IXMLDOMElement.getAttributeNode to read attributes.

For example this code below reads the sample books.xml file from MSDN and accesses an attribute. You need a reference to a version of Microsoft XML.

Private Sub Form_Load()
Dim xmlDoc As New MSXML2.DOMDocument30
Dim nodeBook As IXMLDOMElement
Dim nodeId As IXMLDOMAttribute
Dim sIdValue As String
xmlDoc.async = False
xmlDoc.Load App.Path & "\books.xml"
If (xmlDoc.parseError.errorCode <> 0) Then
   Dim myErr
   Set myErr = xmlDoc.parseError
   MsgBox ("You have error " & myErr.reason)
Else
   Set nodeBook = xmlDoc.selectSingleNode("//book")
   Set nodeId = nodeBook.getAttributeNode("id")
   sIdValue = nodeId.xml
   MsgBox sIdValue
End If

End Sub