I dont know the exact form of the (presumably) hash you are getting back form the DB, but here is one way for a fairly flat hash

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;

use Data::Dumper;

use XML::Simple qw(:strict);

my $data = {
        phone => '555-1234',
        type  => 'home'
       };

print STDERR XML::Simple->new(KeyAttr => {phone => 'type'},
                  RootName => 'phone',
                  XMLDecl => 1,
                  ContentKey => 'phone',
                 )->XMLout($data);
[download]

output

/usr/bin/perl -w "/home/le6303/src/perl/phone.pl" 
<?xml version='1.0' standalone='yes'?>
<phone type="home">555-1234</phone>
[download]

Update : changed the KeyAttr to the more preferred hash form