title: Regex and the OR operator without grouping in Python?
body: <p>Here are the cases. I'm looking for the following pattern in a log file. </p>
  
  <p>All strings are in the form of <code>AB_N</code> or <code>CDE_N</code>. 
  <code>AB</code> and <code>CDE</code> are fixed letters, followed by an underscore. 
  <code>N</code> can be either 2 or 3 numbers.</p>
  
  <p>I tried <code>(AB|CDE)_\d{2,3}</code> but that returns a group. I can't do <code>\w{2,3}\d{2,3}</code> because it has to be either <code>AB</code> or <code>CDE</code> and not <code>AC</code> or <code>FEG</code>. Omitting the parentheses breaks too. I am sure the solution is simple but I'm new to python and regex and can't figure this out.</p>