Get the current logged in OS user in Adobe Air

Question

I need the name of the current logged in user in my Air/Flex application. The application will only be deployed on Windows machines. I think I could attain this by regexing the User directory, but am open to other ways.

Answer 1

There's a couple of small cleanups you can make...

package
{
    import flash.filesystem.File;

    public class UserUtil
    {
        public static function get currentOSUser():String
        {
            var userDir:String = File.userDirectory.nativePath;
            var userName:String = userDir.substr(userDir.lastIndexOf(File.separator) + 1);
            return userName;
        }
    }
}

As Kevin suggested, use File.separator to make the directory splitting cross-platform (just tested on Windows and Mac OS X).

You don't need to use resolvePath("") unless you're looking for a child.

Also, making the function a proper getter allows binding without any further work.

In the above example I put it into a UserUtil class, now I can bind to UserUtil.currentOSUser, e.g:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mx:WindowedApplication xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml" layout="absolute">
    <mx:Label text="{UserUtil.currentOSUser}"/> 
</mx:WindowedApplication>

Answer 2

Also I would try:

File.userDirectory.name

But I don't have Air installed so I can't really test this...

Answer 3

This isn't the prettiest approach, but if you know your AIR app will only be run in a Windows environment it works well enough:

public var username:String;

public function getCurrentOSUser():void
{       
   var nativeProcessStartupInfo:NativeProcessStartupInfo = new NativeProcessStartupInfo();  
   var file:File = new File("C:/WINDOWS/system32/whoami.exe");
   nativeProcessStartupInfo.executable = file;

   process = new NativeProcess();       
   process.addEventListener(ProgressEvent.STANDARD_OUTPUT_DATA, onOutputData);
   process.start(nativeProcessStartupInfo);
}

public function onOutputData(event:ProgressEvent):void
{           
   var output:String = process.standardOutput.readUTFBytes(process.standardOutput.bytesAvailable);
   this.username = output.split('\\')[1];
   trace("Got username: ", this.username);
}

Answer 4

Here is a solution that works in XP / Vista, but is definitely expandable to OSX, linux, I'd still be interested in another way.

public static function GetCurrentOSUser():String{
    // XP & Vista only.
    var userDirectory:String = File.userDirectory.resolvePath("").nativePath;
    var startIndex:Number = userDirectory.lastIndexOf("\\") + 1
    var stopIndex:Number = userDirectory.length;
    var user = userDirectory.substring(startIndex, stopIndex);

    return user;
}

Answer 5

Update way later: there's actually a built in function to get the current user. I think it's in nativeApplication.