Offset color block behind section titles

Question

Joseph Wright's CV source contains a snippet of code that produces an offset color block behind section titles using the titlesec package, like so:

\documentclass[11pt]{article}
\usepackage{lipsum,xcolor}
\usepackage{titlesec}
\titleformat{\section}{\Large}{}{0 em}
  {%
    \begingroup
      \color{gray!30}%
      \titleline{\leaders\hrule height 0.6 em\hfill\kern 0 pt\relax}%
    \endgroup
    \nobreak
    \vspace{-1.2 em}%
    \nobreak
  }
\begin{document}
\section{Lorem Ipsum}
\lipsum[6]
\end{document}

However, when section numbering is added via \thesection in the \titleformat command, this nice effect seems to break:

How could this code be modified such that section numbering doesn't cause any alignment issues? It'd be nice if this could be achieved while still using the titlesec package.

Answer 1

Here's one possibility, using the explicit option for titlesec; the example shows the definitions needed for numbered and unnumbered sections:

\documentclass[11pt]{article}
\usepackage{lipsum,xcolor}
\usepackage[explicit]{titlesec}

\titleformat{\section}{\Large}{}{0em}
  {%
    \begingroup
      \color{gray!30}%
      \titleline{\leaders\hrule height 0.6 em\hfill\kern 0 pt\relax}%
    \endgroup\vskip-1.2em\thesection\hskip0.5em#1
    \nobreak
  }
\titleformat{name=\section,numberless}{\Large}{}{0em}
  {%
    \begingroup
      \color{gray!30}%
      \titleline{\leaders\hrule height 0.6 em\hfill\kern 0 pt\relax}%
    \endgroup\vskip-1.2em#1
    \nobreak
  }

\begin{document}
\section{Lorem Ipsum}
\lipsum[6]
\section*{Lorem Ipsum}
\lipsum[6]
\end{document}