Algorithms and Data Structures : 5th International Workshop WADS97 Halifax Nova Scotia Canada August 6 8 1997 Proceedings This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Workshop on Algorithms and Data Structures WADS97 held in Nova Scotia Halifax Canada in August 1997. The 37 revised full papers presented were carefully selected from a total of 81 submissions. Also included are four abstracts and one full contribution corresponding to the invited talks. Among the topics covered are data structures and algorithmic aspects in a variety of areas like computational geometry graph theory networking load balancing optimization approximation sorting pattern matching etc