it would be for a vector where values are stored in the vector entries. Instead it is usually pointers to strings or objects. So you pull from memory by pointer

it would be for a vector where values are stored in the vector entries. Instead it is usually pointers to strings or objects. So you pull from memory by pointer (i.e. cache unfriendly) every string, compare, etc... And small n is usually small until customer actually generates couple orders of magnitude more of those objects than it was in test/dev :)