bpel escaped xml assignment question

[Jackson, Douglas]

Hi!
If I have a variable which is an xml complex type or a message containing an 
xml complex type, and I want to put the value of that variable (i.e. the xml 
escaped) into a string variable or into a string element/attribute in another 
complex type.  How would I do that?

i.e. in pseudo code:

 var<some-element-type> v1 = <literal><some-element>...</some-element></literal>
 var<string> v2 = escape-xml(v1)     (i.e.  
"&lt;some-element&gt;...&lt;/some-element&gt;").

I guess I could write a web service that takes a request with an <any> xml 
piece and return a string if I had to do so.
-Doug.