Access index in pandas.Series.apply

Python Problem Overview

Lets say I have a MultiIndex Series s:

>>> s
     values
a b
1 2  0.1 
3 6  0.3
4 4  0.7

and I want to apply a function which uses the index of the row:

def f(x):
   # conditions or computations using the indexes
   if x.index[0] and ...: 
   other = sum(x.index) + ...
   return something

How can I do s.apply(f) for such a function? What is the recommended way to make this kind of operations? I expect to obtain a new Series with the values resulting from this function applied on each row and the same MultiIndex.

Python Solutions

Solution 1 - Python

I don't believe apply has access to the index; it treats each row as a numpy object, not a Series, as you can see:

In [27]: s.apply(lambda x: type(x))
Out[27]: 
a  b
1  2    <type 'numpy.float64'>
3  6    <type 'numpy.float64'>
4  4    <type 'numpy.float64'>

To get around this limitation, promote the indexes to columns, apply your function, and recreate a Series with the original index.

Series(s.reset_index().apply(f, axis=1).values, index=s.index)

Other approaches might use s.get_level_values, which often gets a little ugly in my opinion, or s.iterrows(), which is likely to be slower -- perhaps depending on exactly what f does.

Solution 2 - Python

Make it a frame, return scalars if you want (so the result is a series)

Setup

In [11]: s = Series([1,2,3],dtype='float64',index=['a','b','c'])

In [12]: s
Out[12]: 
a    1
b    2
c    3
dtype: float64

Printing function

In [13]: def f(x):
    print type(x), x
    return x
   ....: 

In [14]: pd.DataFrame(s).apply(f)
<class 'pandas.core.series.Series'> a    1
b    2
c    3
Name: 0, dtype: float64
<class 'pandas.core.series.Series'> a    1
b    2
c    3
Name: 0, dtype: float64
Out[14]: 
   0
a  1
b  2
c  3

Since you can return anything here, just return the scalars (access the index via the name attribute)

In [15]: pd.DataFrame(s).apply(lambda x: 5 if x.name == 'a' else x[0] ,1)
Out[15]: 
a    5
b    2
c    3
dtype: float64

Solution 3 - Python

Convert to DataFrame and apply along row. You can access the index as x.name. x is also a Series now with 1 value

s.to_frame(0).apply(f, axis=1)[0]

Solution 4 - Python

You may find it faster to use where rather than apply here:

In [11]: s = pd.Series([1., 2., 3.], index=['a' ,'b', 'c'])

In [12]: s.where(s.index != 'a', 5)
Out[12]: 
a    5
b    2
c    3
dtype: float64

Also you can use numpy-style logic/functions to any of the parts:

In [13]: (2 * s + 1).where((s.index == 'b') | (s.index == 'c'), -s)
Out[13]: 
a   -1
b    5
c    7
dtype: float64

In [14]: (2 * s + 1).where(s.index != 'a', -s)
Out[14]: 
a   -1
b    5
c    7
dtype: float64

I recommend testing for speed (as efficiency against apply will depend on the function). Although, I find that applys are more readable...

Solution 5 - Python

You can access the whole row as argument inside the fucntion if you use DataFrame.apply() instead of Series.apply().

def f1(row):
	if row['I'] < 0.5:
		return 0
	else:
		return 1

def f2(row):
	if row['N1']==1:
		return 0
	else:
		return 1

import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
df4 = pd.DataFrame(np.random.rand(6,1), columns=list('I'))
df4['N1']=df4.apply(f1, axis=1)
df4['N2']=df4.apply(f2, axis=1)

Solution 6 - Python

Use reset_index() to convert the Series to a DataFrame and the index to a column, and then apply your function to the DataFrame.

The tricky part is knowing how reset_index() names the columns, so here are a couple of examples.

With a Singly Indexed Series

s=pd.Series({'idx1': 'val1', 'idx2': 'val2'})

def use_index_and_value(row):
    return 'I made this with index {} and value {}'.format(row['index'], row[0])

s2 = s.reset_index().apply(use_index_and_value, axis=1)

# The new Series has an auto-index;
# You'll want to replace that with the index from the original Series
s2.index = s.index
s2

Output:

idx1    I made this with index idx1 and value val1
idx2    I made this with index idx2 and value val2
dtype: object

With a Multi-Indexed Series

Same concept here, but you'll need to access the index values as row['level_*'] because that's where they're placed by Series.reset_index().

s=pd.Series({
    ('idx(0,0)', 'idx(0,1)'): 'val1',
    ('idx(1,0)', 'idx(1,1)'): 'val2'
})

def use_index_and_value(row):
    return 'made with index: {},{} & value: {}'.format(
        row['level_0'],
        row['level_1'],
        row[0]
    )

s2 = s.reset_index().apply(use_index_and_value, axis=1)

# Replace auto index with the index from the original Series
s2.index = s.index
s2