diff --git a/src/debug/dwarf/entry_test.go b/src/debug/dwarf/entry_test.go
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..8bd2d2a8ad
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/debug/dwarf/entry_test.go
@@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
+// Copyright 2009 The Go Authors. All rights reserved.
+// Use of this source code is governed by a BSD-style
+// license that can be found in the LICENSE file.
+
+package dwarf_test
+
+import (
+	. "debug/dwarf"
+	"testing"
+)
+
+func TestSplit(t *testing.T) {
+	// debug/dwarf doesn't (currently) support split DWARF, but
+	// the attributes that pointed to the split DWARF used to
+	// cause loading the DWARF data to fail entirely (issue
+	// #12592). Test that we can at least read the DWARF data.
+	d := elfData(t, "testdata/split.elf")
+	r := d.Reader()
+	e, err := r.Next()
+	if err != nil {
+		t.Fatal(err)
+	}
+	if e.Tag != TagCompileUnit {
+		t.Fatalf("bad tag: have %s, want %s", e.Tag, TagCompileUnit)
+	}
+	// Check that we were able to parse the unknown section offset
+	// field, even if we can't figure out its DWARF class.
+	const AttrGNUAddrBase Attr = 0x2133
+	f := e.AttrField(AttrGNUAddrBase)
+	if _, ok := f.Val.(int64); !ok {
+		t.Fatalf("bad attribute value type: have %T, want int64", f.Val)
+	}
+	if f.Class != ClassUnknown {
+		t.Fatalf("bad class: have %s, want %s", f.Class, ClassUnknown)
+	}
+}
diff --git a/src/debug/dwarf/testdata/split.c b/src/debug/dwarf/testdata/split.c
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..0ef3427d2e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/debug/dwarf/testdata/split.c
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+// gcc -gsplit-dwarf split.c -o split.elf
+
+int main() 
+{
+}
diff --git a/src/debug/dwarf/testdata/split.elf b/src/debug/dwarf/testdata/split.elf
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..99ee2c2f0b
Binary files /dev/null and b/src/debug/dwarf/testdata/split.elf differ