Printing Current User Name using PHP

I gave it my best all day today and I still couldn’t make this php code work. Like the top dashboard information in the admin, I am trying to get it to print “Howdy, [current username] | Profile | Log Out” at the top of the screen in a <div>.

It currently prints everything EXCEPT the current user’s name AND I can’t get it to recognize a new class with the “|” dividers.

<span class="login_container">
	         <?php global $user_ID;
                        if ($user_ID) {
                            echo "Howdy "; echo $user_identity; echo '<class="login_light">' . " | ";
                            } 

                        wp_register('<class="login">'); {echo " | ";}

						if($user_ID) {
							echo '<class="login"><a href="' . site_url('wp-login.php?action=logout', 'login') . '">' . __('Log Out', 'atahualpa') . '</a>';
						} else {
							echo '<class="login"><a href="' . site_url('wp-login.php', 'login') . '">' . __('Log In', 'atahualpa') . '</a>';
						}
		    ?>

	    </span>

Thanks for any help,
Trimmode