can a function return a virtual table?

This is the question i'm telling myself. It is because we don't really
delete table entries, just setting a status field to '-1'. So a valid
select would look like: SELECT xyz, abc FROM (SELECT * FROM tablex WHERE
status > -1);
It would be much nicer to have to write something like: SELECT xyz, abc
FROM active(tablex); where the function 'active(x)' returns a virtual
table with all entries from table x where status is > -1. But sadly I
have no idea how write such a function. Good old O'reilly can't help (or
i'm to dumb *g*).

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(Demokrit, um 460 v. Chr.)