  We investigate the compilation of general multilinear variational forms over
affines simplices and prove a representation theorem for the representation of
the element tensor (element stiffness matrix) as the contraction of a constant
reference tensor and a geometry tensor that accounts for geometry and variable
coefficients. Based on this representation theorem, we design an algorithm for
efficient pretabulation of the reference tensor. The new algorithm has been
implemented in the FEniCS Form Compiler (FFC) and improves on a previous
loop-based implementation by several orders of magnitude, thus shortening
compile-times and development cycles for users of FFC.
