Well, the following returns what date was 5 days ago:
$days_ago = date(\'Y-m-d\', mktime(0, 0, 0, date(\"m\") , date(\"d\") - 5, date(\"Y\")));
simple way to find the same is
$date = date("Y-m-d", strtotime('-5 days', strtotime('input_date')));