Coloring line numbers in less?

Question

Please consider the following example:

$ grep --color=always -n 'Format\|Files' /usr/share/doc-base/doc-base | less -R

Here, grep will color also the line numbers of the matches, and less will display it.

I know I could show the entire file with line numbers in less with:

$ less -N /usr/share/doc-base/doc-base 

My question is - is there a way, to get less to display the entire file with line numbers - but where the line numbers are colored (as in the case with the grep output)?

Many thanks in advance for any answers,
Cheers!

Answer 1

Well, found something related to the above example - just have grep additionally match "start of line" (^), and all non-matching lines will pass "unharmed", with only the line numbers colored:

$ grep --color=always -n 'Format\|Files\|^' /usr/share/doc-base/doc-base | less -R

... (and as a bonus, matches stay highlighted).

However, I'd still like to know if less can be persuaded to do this "natively"?