diff --git a/tests/test-doctest.py b/tests/test-doctest.py
--- a/tests/test-doctest.py
+++ b/tests/test-doctest.py
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
+# this is hack to make sure no escape characters are inserted into the output
+import os; del os.environ['TERM'] 
 import doctest
 
 import mercurial.changelog