[thelist] can i merge columns in an Oracle query?

[Jeremy Weiss]

Short and sweet this time. I'm figuring the answer will be no, but
hoping I'm wrong. ;)

I've got a query similar to:

SELECT
	all sorts of things
,	WOSQ.DEPARTMENT AS SQUAWKSDEPARTMENT
,	WOST.DEPARTMENT AS STEPSDEPARTMENT
FROM
	11 tables all joined together
WHERE
	sold within a certain date range
GROUP BY
	all sorts of things

Now, I'm needing to order this query by department, but as you can see
I have two of them. So, right now I'm doing the following in my php
code

if (is_null($stepdept)) {
	$department = $squawkdept;  //never null
}else{
	$department = $stepdept;
}

This gives me the department for that particular line item. But, by
this point, it's too late to group the results. Is there any way I
could merge the two departments in the query itself so that I could
group the query by department? The department will always be
STEPSDEPARTMENT unless it's null, then it's SQUAWKSDEPARTMENT.

Thanks.

-jeremy