Why nice is defined as long in 'set_user_nice' - c

Question

I am a student learning OS. When I read the source code of set_user_nice, I found the nice is defined as long. But I have learned that the range of nice is -20 ~ 19. So, why not define nice as int to save more room in RAM？
Is this related to x86 or x64 systems？
Here is the source code(./kernel/sched/core.c)
void set_user_nice(struct task_struct *p, long nice)
{
bool queued, running;
int old_prio, delta;
struct rq_flags rf;
struct rq *rq;
if (task_nice(p) == nice || nice < MIN_NICE || nice > MAX_NICE)
return;
/*
* We have to be careful, if called from sys_setpriority(),
* the task might be in the middle of scheduling on another CPU.
*/
rq = task_rq_lock(p, &rf);
/*
* The RT priorities are set via sched_setscheduler(), but we still
* allow the 'normal' nice value to be set - but as expected
* it wont have any effect on scheduling until the task is
* SCHED_DEADLINE, SCHED_FIFO or SCHED_RR:
*/
if (task_has_dl_policy(p) || task_has_rt_policy(p)) {
p->static_prio = NICE_TO_PRIO(nice);
goto out_unlock;
}
queued = task_on_rq_queued(p);
running = task_current(rq, p);
if (queued)
dequeue_task(rq, p, DEQUEUE_SAVE);
if (running)
put_prev_task(rq, p);
p->static_prio = NICE_TO_PRIO(nice);
set_load_weight(p);
old_prio = p->prio;
p->prio = effective_prio(p);
delta = p->prio - old_prio;
if (queued) {
enqueue_task(rq, p, ENQUEUE_RESTORE);
/*
* If the task increased its priority or is running and
* lowered its priority, then reschedule its CPU:
*/
if (delta < 0 || (delta > 0 && task_running(rq, p)))
resched_curr(rq);
}
if (running)
set_curr_task(rq, p);
out_unlock:
task_rq_unlock(rq, p, &rf);
}