Get current username in Julia (Linux)

Question

I must be doing something stupid, but I can't seem to retrieve the current username using Julia. The closest function in Base appears to be gethostname(), but that returns the computer name, not the username. I tried system calls but am having trouble due to the interpolation character $. Specifically, although echo $USER returns the appropriate username in a terminal, when I try the following in Julia I get various errors or incorrect answers:

run(`echo $USER`)
run(`echo "$USER"`)
run(`echo '$USER'`)
run(`echo '$'USER`)
run(`echo \$USER`)

I guess the issue is that Julia is misinterpreting the $ as an interpolation, but I've got no idea how to get around this.

Any ideas?

Myna

FWIW run(`sh -c 'echo $USER'`) would have worked (but the accepted answer is far better!) – Lillylillywhite

Answer 1

An easy workaround:

run(`whoami`)

But unnecessary, as this works:

ENV["USER"]

Stamey

Brilliant. The ENV["USER"] approach is definitely the way to go. For the sake of completeness, any chance you could comment on what is going wrong with my echo $USER approach? Either way, +1+Tick (as soon as SO lets me). – Myna

run does not run a shell; and the shell is what you need to interpolate the environment variables. run will interpolate Julia variables though, in a shell-like way. Read more here. – Stamey

Answer 2

This works on both Linux and Windows:

splitdir(homedir())[end]

Cyna

Answer 3

A portion of the accepted answer no longer works. Rather than ENV["USER"], the current method is:

ENV["USERNAME"]

Fernandefernandel