diff --git a/tests/test-tag b/tests/test-tag
index ba2d8b0197..a3dbee950d 100755
--- a/tests/test-tag
+++ b/tests/test-tag
@@ -29,14 +29,18 @@ newline'
 hg tag -l 'xx:xx'
 
 echo % issue 601
-mv .hg/localtags .hg/ltags
-head -1 .hg/ltags | tr -d '\n' > .hg/localtags
+python << EOF
+f = file('.hg/localtags'); last = f.readlines()[-1][:-1]; f.close()
+f = file('.hg/localtags', 'w'); f.write(last); f.close()
+EOF
 cat .hg/localtags
 hg tag -l localnewline
 cat .hg/localtags
 
-mv .hgtags hgtags
-head -1 hgtags | tr -d '\n' > .hgtags
+python << EOF
+f = file('.hgtags'); last = f.readlines()[-1][:-1]; f.close()
+f = file('.hgtags', 'w'); f.write(last); f.close()
+EOF
 hg ci -d '1000000 0' -m'broken manual edit of .hgtags'
 cat .hgtags
 hg tag -d '1000000 0' newline