Spurious characters output from git version 1.8.4

Question

I've just updated git to version 1.8.4 on my company's HP-UX machine. Now I am seeing spurious characters on the terminal, for instance when typing git diff I get:

$ git diff
1mdiff --git a/pg/wop/pgmwo.4gl b/pg/wop/pgmwo.4glmm
1mindex 0764c3b..f9f99a8 100644mm
1m--- a/pg/wop/pgmwo.4glmm
1m+++ b/pg/wop/pgmwo.4glmm
36m@@ -2194,8 +2194,9 @@m mRKH090805}mm
                   DELETE FROM woshortmm
                   WHERE line_recno = f_wodet_recnomm
                ELSEmm
31m-                  UPDATE woshortmm
31m-                  SET qty_short = f_shortmm
32m+m32m                  UPDATE woshort SETmm
32m+m32m                     qty_short = f_short,mm
32m+m32m                     line_no = g_wodet_rec.linenomm
                   WHERE line_recno = f_wodet_recnomm
                END IFmm
             END IFmm
36m@@ -5521,8 +5522,9 @@m mDEFINE f_wodet_recno   LIKE wodet.recno,mm
          DELETE FROM woshortmm
          WHERE line_recno = f_wodet_recnomm
       ELSEmm
31m-         UPDATE woshortmm
31m-         SET qty_short = f_shortmm

When I go back to git version 1.8.3.4 this does not happen. I used depothelper to install git and its dependencies. It looks like colour formatting codes but our terminals are all monochromatic.

Our server is HP-UX B.11.31 U ia64 (tr). We typically connect to the server using SmarTerm with a wy60 terminal configuration.

What configuration am I missing?

EDIT

I am also seeing a letter 'm' at the end of every line of output from commands such as git log. For example:

$ git log
commit ded5bfda75018bee84e3b81ca6f7a5f1dcf035cdm
Merge: 196862d 777b10dm
Author: Richard Holyoak <richard.holyoak@jjselectronics.com>m
Date:   Mon Sep 30 13:51:49 2013 +0100m
m
    Merge branch '9328'm
m
commit 777b10d09eb828e250283b74a22df52662d1897cm
Author: Richard Holyoak <richard.holyoak@jjselectronics.com>m
Date:   Mon Sep 30 13:50:09 2013 +0100m
m
    9328 pgmwo: V1-10-06 Updates to woshort ensure that the line number is also
m    m
    I don't think this is the root cause of the woshort line numberm
    being out-of-step with the wodet line number but it will help.m
m
commit 196862de9817b6205263bbf7b14855db158feadem
Merge: 34d84af 07bf5b8m
Author: Richard Holyoak <richard.holyoak@jjselectronics.com>m
Date:   Fri Sep 27 13:25:32 2013 +0100m
m
    Merge branch '11420'm
m

Answer 1

Looks like color codes... In 1.8.4, color.ui defaults to auto, which is a new behavior.

Can you try to manually set it to false and see if it effects the situation?

git config --global color.ui false