I've got two similar problems.

I created file node--my_content_type.tpl.php. 

In that file I'd like to take username as string. I tried


    <?php 
      print $name;
    ?> 


but unfortunately id doesn't work. How can I do it?


The second one:

In my content-type I've got several fields, e.g. 'price' as real-valued field. As above , I'd like to take 'price' as string. I've no idea, how can I do it.