Using

Create a new modal with the name that you want and set property $useDbConfig to your connection (created on app/config/databases.php). After this, create a property $records as array and set your data.

If your data dont have field ‘id’, change property $primaryKey to your field. You can change the $displayField. You will see some like:

<?php
/* Your comments */
class State extends AppModel {
	var $name = 'State';
	var $useDbConfig = 'local';
	var $displayField = 'name';
	var $records = array(
		array('id' => 1, 'name' => 'Alabama', 'abbr' => 'AL'),
		array('id' => 2, 'name' => 'Alaska', 'abbr' => 'AK'),
		array('id' => 3, 'name' => 'Arizona', 'abbr' => 'AZ')
	);
}
?>

In your controller you can use $this->State->find(anything);. You can pass all params that you use in your default database, like ‘conditions’, ‘fields’, ‘order’, ‘limit’, ‘page’, …

Using with others databases models

No problem, you can! In your model that use MySQL (or other db) you can create associations (belongsTo, hasMany, …) to your local model (using array database). See the sample:

<?php
/**
 * Your comments
 *
 * Supose that you table have born_id as field and this is integer
 */
class User extends AppModel {
	var $name = 'User';
	var $belongsTo = array(
		'Born' => array(
			'className' => 'State',
			'foregnKey' => 'born_id'
		);
	);
}
?>

When you use $this->User->find('all'); in you controller, you see that has Born information with data of class State (using ArrayDatasource).