Improving upon what jsuzuki said:
It's probably better to use pg_num_rows() to see if no rows were returned, as that leaves the resultset cursor pointed to the first row so you can use it in a loop.
Example:
<?php
$result=pg_query($conn, "SELECT * FROM x WHERE a=b;");
if (!$result) {
echo "query did not execute";
}
if (pg_num_rows($result) == 0) {
echo "0 records"
}
else {
while ($row = pg_fetch_array($result) {
//do stuff with $row
}
}
?>
I, personally, also find it more readable.