Select XMLElement() gives XML parsing failed error

Hi,

I'm looking at using some XML reports, e.g. to return the rows in XML.

I've found references to XMLElement() which should enclose the data in tags, but I always get the error "ORA-31011: XML parsing failed".

E.g. one simple example I've seen on the web is using sysdate, but this doesn't work for me:

SQL> SELECT XMLELEMENT("date", sysdate) FROM dual;
ERROR:
ORA-31011: XML parsing failed

Am I doing something wrong? Using Oracle 10g in a 9.2 SQL*Plus window.

Thanks in advance,

Leon