Fast forward merge after git flow hotfix

Question

I have three branches production , develop and a fix branch as shown below (A,B and C are commits) :

  A (production,fix)
   \   
    B   (develop) 

I want to be able to only perform fast forward merges using the git flow strategy . However on the scenario where fix and develop have been moved to newer commit C this cant be done f.e.:

    C (fix)                           C (fix,production)
   /                                /
  A (production)     --->>         A 
   \                                \
    B (develop)                      B (develop) 


                   

I would avoid rebasing develop as it is a public branch . Is there a different way I can achieve only fast forward merges (thus keeping a clean history) without having to rebase the development branch ?

Answer 1

Is there a different way I can achieve only fast forward merges (thus keeping a clean history) without having to rebase the development branch ?

No. When you merge two branches, if the two branches have diverged, you must either have a merge commit, or you must rewrite at least one of the branches such that it is based off of the other. There is no way around this.

Side Note: One of the great features of Git is the fact that simultaneous development can be easily merged, which has the side effect of producing merge commits (if you don't wish to rewrite either development path). Note also, since you mentioned Git Flow, that merge commits are highly recommended in your scenario, for multiple reasons.