Is it possible to execute an x86 assembly sequence from within C#?

Question

Continuing my reverse engineering education I've often wanted to be able to copy portions of x86 assembly code and call it from a high level language of my choice for testing.

Does anyone know of a method of calling a sequence of x86 instructions from within a C# method? I know that this can be done using C++ but I'm curious if it can be done in C#?

Note: I'm not talking about executing MSIL instructions. I'm talking about executing a series of raw x86 assembly instructions.

Answer 1

Just to counter Brian's claim, rewritten code from leppie's answer link:

using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Runtime.InteropServices;  namespace DynamicX86 {     class Program     {         const uint PAGE_EXECUTE_READWRITE = 0x40;         const uint MEM_COMMIT = 0x1000;          [DllImport("kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]         static extern IntPtr VirtualAlloc(IntPtr lpAddress, uint dwSize, uint flAllocationType, uint flProtect);          private delegate int IntReturner();          static void Main(string[] args)         {             List<byte> bodyBuilder = new List<byte>();             bodyBuilder.Add(0xb8);             bodyBuilder.AddRange(BitConverter.GetBytes(42));             bodyBuilder.Add(0xc3);             byte[] body = bodyBuilder.ToArray();             IntPtr buf = VirtualAlloc(IntPtr.Zero, (uint)body.Length, MEM_COMMIT, PAGE_EXECUTE_READWRITE);             Marshal.Copy(body, 0, buf, body.Length);              IntReturner ptr = (IntReturner)Marshal.GetDelegateForFunctionPointer(buf, typeof(IntReturner));             Console.WriteLine(ptr());         }     } }