overriding a datatype of an attribute

Hi folks,

Wondering if this is possible and is it good form?

Declare an attribute

<xs:attribute name="type" type="xs:string" />

in which case it is used most often as.

Then when i include it

<xs:include schemaLocation="../attributes/type.xsd" />

and then reference it

<xs:attribute name="type" use="optional" />

can i change its type to dtReferenceType

<xs:attribute name="type" type="dtReferenceType" use="optional" />

The reason being I really do not want to create multiple attributes that
basically do the same thing but just require a different datatype.

Marijan (Mario) Madunic