When RACF® authorization checking matches a resource name with the name of a general resource profile that contains a RACF variable, it locates the RACFVARS profile that matches the RACF variable. RACF then compares each character of the resource name with each character of each member name in the RACFVARS profile until it finds the first match between a sequence of characters in the resource name and a RACFVARS member name. RACF compares the members in the order in which they occur in the RACFVARS profile. In other words, the first name in the member list is compared first and the last name is compared last until a match is found. When a match is found, RACF substitutes the member name for the RACF variable in the name of the general resource profile and then searches for a matching general resource profile to check the access authorization.