I wanted to know what the analogue for MySQL ‘show tables’ was in PostgreSQL, and I found the answer, use the information_schema, here:

mysql: SHOW TABLES
postgresql: \d
postgresql: SELECT table_name FROM information_schema.tables WHERE table_schema = 'public';

mysql: SHOW DATABASES
postgresql: \l
postgresql: SELECT datname FROM pg_database;

mysql: SHOW COLUMNS
postgresql: \d table
postgresql: SELECT column_name FROM information_schema.columns WHERE table_name ='table';

mysql: DESCRIBE TABLE
postgresql: \d+ table
postgresql: SELECT column_name FROM information_schema.columns WHERE table_name ='table';