Pull in the oldest stash

Question

Using following stash list how you pull in the oldest stash while ensuring that you maintain it in the stash.

The list is :

stash@{0}: WIP on feature/feature1: 2f78364 New text
stash@{1}: WIP on feature/feature1: 2f78364 New text 

Options are:

1. git stash apply stash@{0}
2. git stash apply stash@{1}
3. git stash pop stash@{0}
4. git stash pop stash@{1}

I answered as 1, but the correct answer is 2. By framing the question as oldest stash, I thought the first entry which is stash@{0} is the oldest entry which is apparently not. Correct answer is 2.

How?

Answer 1

stash@{0} is the most recent (newest) stash, stash@{1} is "one older", stash@{2} is even older. The oldest stash is the stash with the highest number.

That's how Git defines it, there is no "how"; Quote from the docs

stash@{0} is the most recently created stash, stash@{1} is the one before it, stash@{2.hours.ago} is also possible

Answer 2

This seems to work.

#!/usr/bin/env bash
off_by_one=$(wc -l <$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)/.git/logs/refs/stash)
oldest=$(($off_by_one-1))
git stash apply stash@{$oldest}