Is there a portable way to get the current username in Python?

Question

Is there a portable way to get the current user\'s username in Python (i.e., one that works under both Linux and Windows, at least). It would work like os.getuid

Answer 1

You can get the current username on Windows by going through the Windows API, although it's a bit cumbersome to invoke via the ctypes FFI (GetCurrentProcess → OpenProcessToken → GetTokenInformation → LookupAccountSid).

I wrote a small module that can do this straight from Python, getuser.py. Usage:

import getuser
print(getuser.lookup_username())

It works on both Windows and *nix (the latter uses the pwd module as described in the other answers).