'whoami' does not work on mac terminal

Question

When I set up Node js environment, I often encounter npm permission error, as it can't access /node-modules/. With the help of this question (npm throws error without sudo), I managed to change the ownership. However, I had to type my username, instead of 'whoami' as in the example.

sudo chown -R 'whoami' ~/.npm
chown: whoami: illegal user name

Does it mean 'whoami' is not supported on mac, or am I doing something wrong?

Solution

You have a typo: you need to use backward ticks

sudo chown -R `whoami` ~/.npm