GdkEventKey.string_

a string containing an approximation of the text that would result from this keypress. The only correct way to handle text input of text is using input methods (see gtk.IMContext), so this field is deprecated and should never be used. (gdk_unicode_to_keyval() provides a non-deprecated way of getting an approximate translation for a key.) The string is encoded in the encoding of the current locale (Note: this for backwards compatibility: strings in GTK+ and GDK are typically in UTF-8.) and NUL-terminated. In some cases, the translation of the key code will be a single NUL byte, in which case looking at length is necessary to distinguish it from the an empty translation.

struct GdkEventKey
char* string_;