I was reading subr.el and saw this code:
(defalias 'backward-delete-char 'delete-backward-char)
(defalias 'search-forward-regexp (symbol-function 're-search-forward))
Interestingly, the first line doesn't use symbol-function while the second line does. The only difference I know of these two ways of using defalias is that the help for backward-delete-char (the first one) displays that it is an alias for delete-backward-char while the help for search-forward-regexp doesn't.
Is there a case when the second way is better than the first way?