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

Question

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

Answer 1

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.