Can a script outside of Jira "write" to a Jira issue via email or other means?

[Phil Bustin]

I'm trying to create an "association" function between PVCS and Jira, until we obtain BitBucket.  The idea I've come up with is:

1. A Jira issue is created, and a Developer is assigned.
2. While adding or checking in software modules in PVCS, the Developer assigns a Version Label, equal to the Jira issue key, to the modules.  After add/check-in, a PVCS “trigger” script writes the module path(s) and name(s), Developer name, Date/time and description to an email whose address automatically triggers a transition that updates the Jira issue whose key is in the email Subject, with the data.  The data could be appended to a field that appears in a Version Control section of the Jira issue.

The big question is, can an email to a designated box automatically update a Jira issue if the issue key is contained in the email Subject or Body?  If not, is writing to a file an alternative, and if so, how would the file be attached to or read by the Jira issue?

[Trudy Claspill · Accepted solution]

Jira does have email handlers but the content of the email is strictly added as a Comment on the named Jira issue.

If you have the option to create a script then I would advise you to construct that script to utilize the Jira REST API to make the changes that you need to the specified Jira issue.

https://developer.atlassian.com/cloud/jira/platform/rest/v3/intro/

[Phil Bustin]

Can you suggest documentation and/or courses that can help me understand (from scratch) how to use the Jira REST API? 

The script I created is a dos batch script that writes 2 lines of data to a file for each PVCS module (though that can be condensed to 1 line).  The name of the output file would be equal to the key of the Jira item.  I figure this script could call a script that copies all the lines from the file to a custom multi-line field called Version Control, in the target Jira item.  Does that sound do-able, and if so, how can I learn how to do it?