xmonad install clarification

Question

I'm attempting to install xmonad on my machine and I'm at this point in the instructions (http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Xmonad/Using_xmonad_on_Apple_OSX#Installing_xmonad)

2.2 Configuring Your .profile

Insert the following into your ~/.profile

export PATH=$PATH:~/.cabal/bin:/usr/local/bin
export USERWM=`which xmonad`
Much of this isn't needed until later, but it's good to get it out the way now.

2.2.1 Installing Cabal

I understand what's going on with export PATH=$PATH:~/.cabal/bin:/usr/local/bin but could someone please explain 1. what the USERWM global variable is and what exactly is meant to be assigned to it? (I'm assuming 'which xmonad' isn't meant literally). Is it a version number of xmonad? Something else?

Answer 1

It is later executed in ~/.xinitrc:

source ~/.profile
exec $USERWM

Cheers

Answer 2

Also, the line

export USERWM=`which xmonad`

is correct as is. The shell will treat things in backticks (next to the '1' on top of most keyboards) as a command to be executed. The which command will give the path to xmonad by searching through the PATH variable.

Note that this means

export USERWM='which xmonad'

will not work, since the shell wouldn't run the command with the regular tick marks.