title: Using $USER in scripts
body: <p>Given a script which sets some arbitrary properties on a dev server, if I wanted to automatically insert the users system name into a path for say log files, how would I go about doing so?</p>
  
  <p>desired output:</p>
  
  <pre><code>/usr/user/logs/log_file
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I have tried using <code>whoami</code>, <code>echo whoami</code>, <code>echo $USER</code>, and it fails to give the desired output. Any help would be greatly appreciated.</p>