How to get default shell

Question

We can run something like chsh -s /usr/local/bin/zsh to set a new default shell. Is there a command we can run to know what that shell is?

I don’t mean

Answer 1

For macOS:

dscl . -read /Users/username UserShell

For the current macOS user:

dscl . -read ~/ UserShell

To parse the path inline using sed:

dscl . -read ~/ UserShell | sed 's/UserShell: //'

Using $SHELL will report the current login shell, not the default login shell. In certain cases, these are not the same. For example, when working in an IDE such as Visual Studio Code which opens an integrated terminal without consulting the default shell.

In addition, as pointed out by Martin C. Martin, $SHELL is a constant that will not change after chsh changes the default login shell.