Access index in pandas.Series.apply

Question

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 functi

Answer 1

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...