How to Get the Current User Details in MySQL

In this blog post, we will see the different ways we can get the currently logged in user in the MySQL Client inside the MySQL Session.

It is good to verify the currently logged in user details with the host name, for certain authentication and authorization purposes.

Way to get the current user

Way 1 - Predefined `user()` function

You can use the predefined function user() to get the currently logged in user with the MySQL Database server.

Command Output

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MariaDB [itsraghz]> select user();
+-----------------+
| user()          |
+-----------------+
| raghs@localhost |
+-----------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

Way 2 - Predefined `current_user()` function

You can invoke a function without any parantheses if there are no parameters supplied to it. Hence, the invocation current_user and current_user() is the same.

Command Output

MariaDB [itsraghz]> select current_user;
+-----------------+
| current_user    |
+-----------------+
| raghs@localhost |
+-----------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

MariaDB [itsraghz]> select current_user();
+-----------------+
| current_user()  |
+-----------------+
| raghs@localhost |
+-----------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

Way 3 - Predefined `current_user()` function with `from dual` clause

You can also use the from dual; clause for the predefined functions, as it is one of the good/standard practices.

Command Output

MariaDB [itsraghz]> select current_user() from dual;
+-----------------+
| current_user()  |
+-----------------+
| raghs@localhost |
+-----------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

MariaDB [itsraghz]>

Cheers,
RM…
Raghavan alias Saravanan Muthu
13 Jun 2021 | Sun | 11 23 AM IST