Need help with C Programming assignment

There are some other ways I can think of right now, both seem to be possibly faster:
Set up two arrays with 256 slots.
Whenever "a" is found in any string, increase the "a"-value for that string's array. Do that for all values. When null is found, check that the two arrays you've made is equal.

Set up a list or a hash-array. Repeat the same thing as written above.

honestly, i dont know enough to know how to do that. And i kept trying to sort the strings and kept getting various problems. currently have something working, doubt it's perfect.

 Spoiler

Code:

int permutation(char string1[], char string2[])
{
int i, j;
int count1;
int count2;
int length;

count1=0;
count2=0;
length = strlen(string1);

for(i=0; string1[i]!= '\0'; i++) {
         for(j=0; string2[j] != '\0'; j++) {
         if (string1[i] == string2[j]){
            count1++;
            break;
            }
                
            }
            }
for(i = 0; string2[i] !='\0'; i++){
      for(j=0; string1[j] != '\0'; j++){
               if (string2[i] == string1[j]){
                  count2++;
                  break;
                  }
                  
                  }
                  }
if (count1 == length && count2== length)
   return 1;
else
    return 0;
                  
         }

edit: posted what i have that seems to work for permutation, now working on main.
have got it to read the dictionary into a string array, but cant get it to acknowledge that a word is in the dictionary, even like the first word. Keeps coming back false for the test.