How to have each instance of a model access all elements of another table

Hello,

I'm new to CakePHP and PHP in general. I turned to the mailing list for help because I'm stuck and couldn't find what I need from searching the internet, so I hope you guys could help me out. [Sorry if this happens to turn out too easy. Like I said, I'm new to Cake and PHP in general, so be nice. ;) ]

I'm building an application that would connect serially to a device. As a user can opt to have different device configurations, I made a model named "settings" that have the following fields:
      | id | port_direction | port_value | etc.
      |  1 |      00        |   00       | .
      |  2 |      01        |   02       | .

How do I map these rows to a column of another table containing the commands corresponding to the "settings" fields?
     | id | command_name    | command_code
     | 1  | port_direction  | 1201
     | 2  | port_value      | 1202

Updating each of the "settings" fields, requires accessing the corresponding element in the "commands" table. I can't really think of an association to connect the two tables (I don't think the "commands" table can really be classified as a model, but more of a simple list), as each "setting" would require using *all* elements of the commands table (hasOne and belongsTo is one-to-one, HATBM would create an extremely large table with repeating relationships).

What do you suggest I do to be able to access the "commands" table from the "settings" model?

Thanks in advance.

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