I have a function

awkvarrep() {
awk -F'|' '$1~/$1/{printf "%-10s %-30s %-15s %-30s %-15s\n", $2,$3,$4,$5,$6}' testfile
}

I'm calling it by this
VARREP=XYZ
awkvarrep $VARREP

since i'm passing $VARREP to the awkvarrep() function I want to use this with $1 but it dosen't seem to be working inside the awk in the Shell Script. Do I need to use an escape sequence for it to work pls advice or else I need to do this like 10 times!