Bidicts Create Reference Cycles
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

As we've seen,
a bidict ``b`` keeps a reference to its inverse ``b.inv``,
and its inverse bidict keeps a reference to it (``b.inv.inv is b``).
So even when you no longer have any references to ``b``,
its refcount will not drop to zero
because its inverse still has a reference to it.
Reference cycles are also created
in the doubly-linked list that backs an
:class:`OrderedBidict <bidict.OrderedBidict>` instance.

As long as your Python implementation's
garbage collector has not been disabled,
it will detect and break these reference cycles
so the memory allocated for a bidict can be reclaimed
when you no longer have any references to it.

**NOTE:** Prior to CPython 3.4,
``__del__`` methods prevented reference cycles from being garbage collected.
No bidicts implement ``__del__``,
so this is only an issue if you implement ``__del__`` in a bidict subclass.