How do I get the name of the active user via the c

Question

How do I get the name of the active user via the command line in OS X?

Answer 1

There are two ways-

whoami

or

echo $USER

Answer 2

getting username in MAC terminal is easy...

I generally use whoami in terminal...

For example, in this case, I needed that to install Tomcat Server...

Answer 3

If you want to know who's currently logged in to the system:

$ w
 15:56:14 up 5 days, 20:58,  6 users,  load average: 0.43, 0.53, 0.50
USER     TTY        LOGIN@   IDLE   JCPU   PCPU WHAT
me       pts/2     Fri19    1:03m  0.98s  0.98s -/bin/bash
me       pts/3     09:55    6:00m  0.43s  0.43s /bin/bash
me       pts/5     15:56    0.00s  0.23s  0.00s w

(This is from a Linux system; the formatting on OS X may be slightly different, but the information should be about the same.)

There may be multiple login sessions; UNIX is designed to be a multi-user system, after all.

Answer 4

If you'd like to display the full name (instead of the username), add the -F flag:

$ id -F
Andrew Havens

Answer 5

You can also retrieve it from the environment variables, but that is probably not secure, so I would go with Andrew's answer.

printenv USER

If you need to retrieve it from an app, like Node, it's easier to get it from the environment variables, such as

process.env.USER.

Answer 6

I'm pretty sure the terminal in OS X is just like unix, so the command would be:

whoami

I don't have a mac on me at the moment so someone correct me if I'm wrong.