I've found another function to mimic the following mysql list tables function (http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.mysql-list-tables.php) that's more useful for my target:
function pg_list_tables() {
$sql = "SELECT a.relname AS Name
FROM pg_class a, pg_user b
WHERE ( relkind = 'r') and relname !~ '^pg_' AND relname !~ '^sql_'
AND relname !~ '^xin[vx][0-9]+' AND b.usesysid = a.relowner
AND NOT (EXISTS (SELECT viewname FROM pg_views WHERE viewname=a.relname));";
return(pg_query($conn, $sql));
}