datestyle formatting

I need to know the day of the week for a schedule rotation algorithm i'm working
on.  Initially i was going to use the function for day of the year and week of
the year to find the first day of the year, but it seems like it would be easier
to use the postgres, dmy format and then parse the string for the day
abbreviation.  I've switched the datestyle format in the .conf file and used the
set to command, but my output never reads as the example in the 7.4.6 docs it
always shows just the dmy standard output 10-12-1999 for example as opposed to
wed oct 17 1987, any help on this would be appreciated

thanks,
matt