getting the index of a row in a pandas apply function

To access the index in this case you access the name attribute:

In [182]:

df = pd.DataFrame([[1,2,3],[4,5,6]], columns=['a','b','c'])
def rowFunc(row):
    return row['a'] + row['b'] * row['c']

def rowIndex(row):
    return row.name
df['d'] = df.apply(rowFunc, axis=1)
df['rowIndex'] = df.apply(rowIndex, axis=1)
df
Out[182]:
   a  b  c   d  rowIndex
0  1  2  3   7         0
1  4  5  6  34         1

Note that if this is really what you are trying to do that the following works and is much faster:

In [198]:

df['d'] = df['a'] + df['b'] * df['c']
df
Out[198]:
   a  b  c   d
0  1  2  3   7
1  4  5  6  34

In [199]:

%timeit df['a'] + df['b'] * df['c']
%timeit df.apply(rowIndex, axis=1)
10000 loops, best of 3: 163 µs per loop
1000 loops, best of 3: 286 µs per loop

EDIT

Looking at this question 3+ years later, you could just do:

In[15]:
df['d'],df['rowIndex'] = df['a'] + df['b'] * df['c'], df.index
df

Out[15]: 
   a  b  c   d  rowIndex
0  1  2  3   7         0
1  4  5  6  34         1

but assuming it isn't as trivial as this, whatever your rowFunc is really doing, you should look to use the vectorised functions, and then use them against the df index:

In[16]:
df['newCol'] = df['a'] + df['b'] + df['c'] + df.index
df

Out[16]: 
   a  b  c   d  rowIndex  newCol
0  1  2  3   7         0       6
1  4  5  6  34         1      16

Either:

1. with row.name inside the apply(..., axis=1) call:

df = pandas.DataFrame([[1,2,3],[4,5,6]], columns=['a','b','c'], index=['x','y'])

   a  b  c
x  1  2  3
y  4  5  6

df.apply(lambda row: row.name, axis=1)

x    x
y    y

2. with iterrows() (slower)

DataFrame.iterrows() allows you to iterate over rows, and access their index:

for idx, row in df.iterrows():
    ...