Get equivalent SQL query for any Postgres meta-command
Easy and very useful: you can launch psql with the proper switch (-E) to get the information. 

me@mystation:~/ &gt; psql -E 
psql (9.3.11)
Type "help" for help.
me@mystation # \d
********* QUERY **********
SELECT n.nspname as "Schema",
  c.relname as "Name",
  CASE c.relkind WHEN 'r' THEN 'table' WHEN 'v' THEN 'view' WHEN 'm' THEN 'materialized view' WHEN 'i' THEN 'index' WHEN 'S' THEN 'sequence' WHEN 's' THEN 'special' WHEN 'f' THEN 'foreign table' END as "Type",
  pg_catalog.pg_get_userbyid(c.relowner) as "Owner"
FROM pg_catalog.pg_class c
     LEFT JOIN pg_catalog.pg_namespace n ON n.oid = c.relnamespace
WHERE c.relkind IN ('r','v','m','S','f','')
      AND n.nspname &lt;&gt; 'pg_catalog'
      AND n.nspname &lt;&gt; 'information_schema'
      AND n.nspname !~ '^pg_toast'
  AND pg_catalog.pg_table_is_visible(c.oid)
ORDER BY 1,2;


Have a look at http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/app-psql.html for more information. Once in psql, you could also set the ECHO_HIDDEN variable.