Is it possible to show line number in side-by-side diff output?

Question

I am using diff with the -y and --suppress-common-lines options and the output is almost perfect except I'd like to see the line numbers of the changes.

Example:

file1:

line a
line b
line c

file2:

line a
line B
line c
line d

command and output:

$ diff -y --suppress-common-lines file1 file2
line b                                                        | line B
                                                              > line d

Is this combination of options possible with diff or do I need another tool?

Answer 1

Unfortunately the -y option uses the formatting style internally (as does --LFMT-line-format), you cannot cumulate formatting commands with -y. You cannot obtain from formatting parameters what -y does, so you cannot workaround directly with diff (I checked diff 3.2 source code).

You need to use another tool.