From: Morton Goldberg <m_goldberg@...>
Date: 2006-08-21T04:24:52+09:00
Subject: Re: detect user

I'm running on OS X, too. Here is what works for me in getting user  
environment info:

       user = ENV['USER'] # user login name
       home = ENV['HOME'] # user login path

The second seems to be what you are looking for.

Regards, Morton

On Aug 20, 2006, at 2:41 PM, Ryan Kaye wrote:

> Im new to ruby and trying to learn by building a small app for mac  
> osx.
> So far I love it. However, one thing I want to do is to detect the
> current user (of the app's) system directory name ie -
> /Users/johnsmith/... - johnsmith being what I want get.
>
> One way I tried was to use a system call such as
>
> system("Users")
>
> but although this will output the current user in the console it will
> not store the name as a variable because, as im sure you know, the
> system call returns a boolean and not the result of the call.
>
> Anybody know of an alternative way.