Querying hierarchical data in Vertica + Tableau

Hi Guys,
I was looking for representing hierarchical data using flattened structure, have question on the same
a. Does vertica support recursive iteration to populate the flatten structure or do we need to build a external script to achieve it. (It would be great if you have a sample used for the blog below).
b. For The flattened table the column name are to be dynamically generated and accessed, do we an example around the same?
REF:
1. https://www.vertica.com/blog/can-vertica-climb-a-treeba-p223303/
2. https://forum.vertica.com/discussion/comment/216109#Comment_216109