  At the heart of any finite element simulation is the assembly of matrices and
vectors from discrete variational forms. We propose a general interface between
problem-specific and general-purpose components of finite element programs.
This interface is called Unified Form-assembly Code (UFC). A wide range of
finite element problems is covered, including mixed finite elements and
discontinuous Galerkin methods. We discuss how the UFC interface enables
implementations of variational form evaluation to be independent of mesh and
linear algebra components. UFC does not depend on any external libraries, and
is released into the public domain.
