getting gtkcombo selected item

["Timothy I. McGinnis" <tmcginnis synertechsystems com>]

I'm sorry folks, but I am rather confused at the moment.

I have a combo box with items in it.  I am trying to get a pointer to the
currently selected item, not the entry for the combo box, but the currently
selected item.  I want to be able to change this item in the combo box drop
down without having to read
through the entire list and re-assign it using the popdown_strings
function.  (if this is even possible)

Now the list member of the gtkcombo structure is created as a GtkList
widget.  The GtkList widget contains a member called selection which is a
pointer to a GList.  I am assuming that selection contains the item which
has been selected in the combo box and is now displayed in the entry field
of the combo box, is this a correct assumption (I am assuming that this
could contain several selected items but for my situation I will only be
selecting one).  If so, why cant' I just assign combo->selection->data to a
pointer to get the pointer to the item text?  When ever I try this and do a
printf to see if I have the right item I get garbage.

What am I assuming incorrectly?

TIA
Tim M.
newbie of all newbies