diff --git a/applications/luci-app-statistics/root/usr/bin/stat-genconfig b/applications/luci-app-statistics/root/usr/bin/stat-genconfig
index 8b14c29e57..152e584da4 100755
--- a/applications/luci-app-statistics/root/usr/bin/stat-genconfig
+++ b/applications/luci-app-statistics/root/usr/bin/stat-genconfig
@@ -302,7 +302,7 @@ end
 preprocess = {
 	RRATimespans = function(val)
 		local rv = { }
-		for time in val:gmatch("[^%s]+") do
+		for time in luci.util.imatch(val) do
 			table.insert( rv, luci.util.parse_units(time) )
 		end
 		return table.concat(rv, " ")