Checking for table existence

Hi everyone.  In my old SQL Server days, I used a command such as "IF
exists(select name from sys_objects where name = 'xyztable')"  to check if a
table existed before creating it with a standard CREATE command.  I looked
in the PostgreSQL documentation, but for the life of me, I can't find an
equivalent.  I can view if the table exists by doing a select against the
meta-data tables, but what about the IF statement ?  Any help would be
greatly appreciated.  Thanks.


Julester