How to insert previous record for every empty field from DB

So I have this form with 6 input fields. For every submitted empty field I want to insert the value from the previous Database record. How can I do this without writing tons of if-Statements? This is what I tried. It works but once the first condition is true the second one doesn't get executed and its too much code for ALL possible conditions:

if(empty($request->heading)){
            $previous_record = HowItWorks::latest('id')->first()->heading;
            HowItWorks::create([
                'heading' => $previous_record,
                'subheading' => $request->subheading,
    
                'caption1' => $request->caption1,
                'caption2' => $request->caption2,
                'caption3' => $request->caption3,
                'caption4' => $request->caption4,
            ]);
        }else if(empty($request->subheading)){
            $previous_record = HowItWorks::latest('id')->first()->subheading;

            HowItWorks::create([
                'heading' => $request->heading,
                'subheading' => $previous_record,
    
                'caption1' => $request->caption1,
                'caption2' => $request->caption2,
                'caption3' => $request->caption3,
                'caption4' => $request->caption4,
            ]);
        }

Any help is highly appreciated!!

CodePudding user response：

$previous_record = HowItWorks::latest('id')->first();
HowItWorks::create([
   'heading' => $request->heading ?? $previous_record->heading,
   'subheading' => $request->subheading ?? $previous_record->subheading,
    
   'caption1' => $request->caption1,
   'caption2' => $request->caption2,
   'caption3' => $request->caption3,
   'caption4' => $request->caption4,
]);