Question

To get the user name from Windows, using MinGW, should I use the function getlogin() from unistd.h, or the Windows function GetUserName?

Thank you.

Answer 1

You can check the USERNAME variable:

char *name = getenv("USERNAME"); // Get environmentvariable for Username

if( name == NULL )
    return -1; // Username not found ...
else
    printf("%s\n", name); // Output Username

If you are fully on Windows you can use its API (GetUserName()) too:

#include <windows.h>
#include <Lmcons.h>

// ...

TCHAR name [ UNLEN + 1 ];
DWORD size = UNLEN + 1;

if( GetUserName((TCHAR*) name, &size) )
    printf("%s\n", name); // Output Username
else
    return -1; // Username not found ...

In general:

• use getlogin() if you are on linux / unix since it’s not available in MinGW
• use GetUserName() if you are on windows
• use both (conditional group preprocessor) with you want to stay platform independend