$HEX[...]

[philsmd]

Yes, encoding matters. Try this:

Code:

echo -en 'EFE\xc7INAR' | md5sum
f54198dc47cf5cd61202b8675e118811  -

or this:

Code:

echo -n 'EFEÇINAR' | iconv -t iso-8859-1 | md5sum
f54198dc47cf5cd61202b8675e118811  -