How to get the current Joomla username?

I'm trying to get the current Joomla username. I was able to get it by using

$user =& JFactory::getUser();
echo $user->username;

But now I've installed Joomla on my local server and it doesn't work anymore. The usernames are correctly stored in the database, but开发者_开发知识库 the code just doesn't work anymore. Any ideas?

Thanks

use only : <? echo "wellcome ". $user->username; ?>

That is the correct way to get the username from Joomla. If that isn't working, then you have a bigger problem somewhere.