problem with to_char

Hi!

I think I have not understood some elementary things of the to_char function 
in pgsql7.1.2. I only get back a mask instead of a formatted string.

I tried the following in psql:
SPS=> select to_char(45145, '9.999,99');
  to_char
-----------
  #.###,##
(1 row)

I also tried a "normal" query in the form:
	select col1,col2,to_char(col3, '9.999,99') from test;
with col3 as numeric values. I also only get a mask in the 3rd col.

What am I doing wrongly?

Kind regards,
Carsten Grewe