null bytes after ANSI sequences in color 'ls' output

[Mike Brown]

After I upgraded 6.2-STABLE (Feb 2007-ish) to 6.3-STABLE (last week), my 
colorized 'ls -G' output is now plagued with 8 null bytes following each ANSI 
sequence.

I normally pipe my output to 'less -R' so ANSI sequences pass through while 
other control characters are converted to visible ones. This worked great 
until now. Now I see '^@' for each null. It's not a new feature of less, so
I assume it's ls or curses throwing in the nulls.

For example, I'm getting output like this if I use 'ls -G | less':

ESC[36mMailESC[39;49mESC[mESC[m^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@

It's the '^@'s that are unexpected, although the repeated ESC[m pairs are also 
mysterious since they seem to have no purpose.

If I use 'ls -G | less -R', then the ANSI sequences pass through as they 
should, but I still get the nulls.


Questions:

Is this is reproducible?
Should I file a PR?

FWIW, my tcsh TERM environment variable is vt100-color.
I'm using SecureCRT with vt100 emulation and ANSI color. 

Thanks,
Mike