For each row in an R dataframe

You can try this, using apply() function

> d
  name plate value1 value2
1    A    P1      1    100
2    B    P2      2    200
3    C    P3      3    300

> f <- function(x, output) {
 wellName <- x[1]
 plateName <- x[2]
 wellID <- 1
 print(paste(wellID, x[3], x[4], sep=","))
 cat(paste(wellID, x[3], x[4], sep=","), file= output, append = T, fill = T)
}

> apply(d, 1, f, output = 'outputfile')

You can use the by() function:

by(dataFrame, seq_len(nrow(dataFrame)), function(row) dostuff)

But iterating over the rows directly like this is rarely what you want to; you should try to vectorize instead. Can I ask what the actual work in the loop is doing?